: 

1 

* 

( 

: 

I- 

J 

3 

[ 

i 

if 

? 

i 

t 

■i 

E 

,    -  ; 

r^. 

It 

1*. 

1 
< 

1 

;; 

' 

t 

I 

' 

" 

1 

: 

■" 

r' 

\ 

• 

. 

'■' 

) 

'. 

" 

[       ■ 

r 

:          i. 

i' 

I 

' 

\ 

m 


■  ■'   -o  y    ./■■  ■ ,.  .■■■ 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT   LOS  ANGELES 


STUDIES    OF    A   BOOKLOVER 


Matthew  Arnold 


STUDIES 

OF  A 

BOOKLO VER 

BY 


THOMAS  MARC  PARROTT 

Profeaor  of  English   in  Princeton 
University 


% 


NEW  YORK 

JAMES  POTT  &  COMPANY 

1904 


Copyright,  1901 
By  The  Booklovers  Librakt 

Copyright,  1903,  1904 
By  The  Library  Publishing  Co. 

Copyright,  1904 
By  James  Pott  &  Co. 


First  Impression  September,  1904 


The  Plimpton  Press  Norwood  Mass. 


'  t  t     .  .  c    It  t    1  .  »      '  c '     «       »    c         1        ■«  «         "       c  "' 


It'.       1        '>         i*c''  - 

I      ,'  -    '    <    \  I  '  '    ' 


P£  f  - 


TO 

JUNIUS  SPENCER  MORGAN 

CLASSMATE  COLLEAGUE  AND   FELLOW   BOOKLOVER 

THIS  TOKEN 

OF 

OLD   AND  UNBROKEN   FRIENDSHIP 


Preface 

As   a   form   of   literary  art   the   elaborate 
preface    is    rapidly    becoming    extinct. 
And  in  the  case  of  so  unpretentious  a  book  as 
this   little   collection   of   essays   there   can   be 
neither  need  nor  wish  of  its  momentary  re- 
vival.     For    these    studies    are    merely    frag- 
<       mentary  records  of  a  booklover's  journeyings 
3       through  the   pleasantest  of  lands  —  the  land 
of  books.     They  have  no  theories  of  literature 
to  expound,  no  philosophy  of  life  to  express. 
There  is  not,  so  far  at  least  as  I  can  see,  any 
one   central  or  dominating  idea  upon  which 
as  a  connecting  thread  these  detached  essays 
j$      are    strung.     They    are    simply    random    im- 
^      pressions  of  travel,  and  nothing  more. 

I  have  chosen  to  call  them  "studies,"  be- 
cause, it  seems  to  me,  they  bear  the  same  rela- 
tion to  finished  works  that  the  hasty  sketches 

vii 


"St 

tn 

DC 

35 


434390 


Preface 

of  a  painter  in  some  notebook  or  portfolio  of 
travel  bear  to  his  completed  pictures.  They 
make  no  pretence  to  being  complete  and  de- 
finitive discussions  of  their  themes.  They 
attempt  only  to  seize  certain  aspects,  to  record 
certain  impressions,  of  stopping-places  on  the 
journey.  They  may  at  least  amuse  the  casual 
reader;  at  best,  perhaps,  they  may  interest  the 
more  thoughtful  and  lead  him  back  once  more 
to  the  great  originals. 

To  the  editor  of  the  Handbooks  published 
by  the  Booklovers  Library  I  owe  my  thanks 
for  his  kind  permission  to  reprint  the  essay  on 
The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold,  which  originally 
appeared  in  the  Handbook  of  the  Greater 
Victorian  Poets.  For  its  publication  in  the 
present  collection  this  essay  has  been  carefully 
revised  and  corrected.  The  essays  on  the 
Personality  of  Johnson  and  on  The  Last 
Minstrel  first  appeared  in  the  Booklovers 
Magazine,  and  I  am  indebted  to  its  editor  for 
the   courtesy   which   has   permitted   their   in- 

viii 


Preface 

elusion  in  this  volume.  Of  these  the  first 
now  appears  in  a  much  longer  form,  the  second 
is  reprinted  with  only  a  few  verbal  changes. 
Were  I  to  thank  by  name  all  the  friends 
who  have  aided  me  by  encouragement,  ad- 
vice, criticism,  and  correction  during  the 
years  in  which  these  studies  have  been  put 
together,  I  should  overrun  the  limits  of  a 
preface.  But  if  by  chance  any  one  of  them 
should  see  this  page  and  recall  those  instances 
of  help  which  I  so  well  remember,  I  would 
ask  him  to  feel  the  sincerity  of  my  unspoken 
thanks  and  to  think  of  me  as  not  all  unmind- 
ful, not  all  ungrateful,  for  past  help  and  present 
friendship.  T  M  P 

Silver  Bay, 

Lake  George, 
August,  1904. 


IX 


Table  of  Contents 
I 

The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold  1 

II 

Old  Edinburgh  and  Her  Poet- Laureate  56 

III 

The  Autobiography  of  Milton  98 

IV 

The  Personality  of  Dr.  Johnson  132 

V 

"The  Frugal  Note  of  Gray''  173 

VI 

The  Charm  of  Goldsmith  207 

VII 

The  Last  Minstrel  238 

VIII 

The  Vitality  of  Browning  262 


The 
Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold 

IT  is  by  his  poetry  that  the  place  of  Matthew 
Arnold  in  English  literature  will  in  the  end 
be  determined.  Such  was  not,  it  is  true,  the 
opinion  of  his  immediate  contemporaries. 
Whether  they  cheered  him  as  a  child  of  the 
Sun  God  slaying  with  the  shafts  of  Apollo 
the  giants  of  Philistia  and  the  dragons  of  anti- 
quated superstition,  or  whether  they  shrank 
from  him  as  a  faithless  and  hopeless  blas- 
phemer of  national  traditions  and  the  ancient 
faith,  the  men  of  his  own  age  thought  rather 
of  his  prose  than  of  his  poetry.  One  reason 
for  this  no  doubt  lay  in  the  predominating 
quantity  of  his  prose.     His  poems  are  con- 

[1] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

tained  in  one  not  very  bulky  volume;  his 
essays  and  discourses,  his  lectures  and  criti- 
cisms —  religious,  educational,  social,  and 
literary  —  occupy  some  nine  or  ten.  His 
poetry  was  for  the  most  part  written  before 
he  was  forty  years  old;  he  remained  a  promi- 
nent figure  in  the  world  of  prose  till  his  death 
at  something  over  sixty-five. 

Moreover  there  was  something  in  the 
quality  of  Arnold's  poetic  work  that  tended  to 
prevent  an  instant  popularity.  Neither  the 
sentiment  nor  the  splendor  which  made 
Tennyson  the  darling  of  his  age  were  his;  he 
did  not  have  the  quick,  keen  interest  in  life, 
the  broad  human  sympathies,  wliich  so  rapidly 
recommended  Browning  to  the  hearts  of  think- 
ing, feeling,  men  and  women  on  both  sides  of 
the  Atlantic,  when  once  the  spell  of  his  strange 
new  style  was  broken.  Arnold's  first  volume 
of  poems  attracted  hardly  any  attention;  his 
second  he  himself  withdrew  from  the  public 
before  fifty  copies  were  sold.     A  nobly    sym- 

[2] 


The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold 

pathetic  review  by  Swinburne  of  the  New 
Poems  of  1867  marked  the  turn  of  the  tide. 
This  was  the  first  book  of  Arnold's  poems 
that  met  with  an  appreciative  reception  from 
the  general  public;  and  with  this  book  he  laid 
aside  his  singing  robes.  Except  for  the  lofty 
elegy  on  Dean  Stanley  and  two  or  three  grace- 
ful and  tender  poems  on  the  death  of  some 
household  pets,  he  wrote  no  line  of  poetry 
again. 

But  to-day,  when  his  theological  polemics 
are  neglected  alike  by  friend  and  foe,  when 
his  social  ideals  are,  for  good  or  evil,  very 
rapidly  left  behind  in  the  tremendous  advance 
of  scientific  materialism,  when  even  his  literary 
judgments  are  assailed  as  partial  and  subjec- 
tive, the  beauty  and  the  worth  of  his  poetry 
are  dawning  more  brightly  upon  a  world  that 
begins  to  wonder  at  its  own  blindness.  A 
hush  has  fallen  upon  English  poetry  in  the 
last  decade.  The  clanging  trumpet  tones  of 
Browning  ring  no  longer  in  our  ears;  the  rich 

[3] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

and  tender  harmonies  of  Tennyson  no  longer 
overwhelm  the  other  voices.  Out  of  the  past 
there  rises  the  cool,  clear,  flute-like  note  of 
Arnold  —  not  broad,  not  deep,  but  of  a  charm 
for  the  lovers  of  purity  and  perfection  in  art 
such  as  is  hard  to  find  elsewhere  in  English 
poetry. 

No  good  biography  of  Arnold  exists,  but 
after  all  it  does  not  matter  much.  The  im- 
portant facts  of  his  life  are  known,  and  his 
Letters,  published  in  1895,  give  us  a  presenta- 
tion of  his  personality  such  as  few  biographies 
afford.  He  was  the  oldest  son  of  a  father 
scarcely  less  famous  than  himself.  Dr.  Thomas 
Arnold,  the  scholar,  historian,  and  preacher. 
He  received  the  orthodox  classical  English 
education,  at  Winchester,  at  Rugby  under  his 
father,  and  at  Oxford.  As  an  undergraduate 
at  the  university  he  did  not  greatly  distinguish 
himself,  although  he  won  a  prize  for  poetry 
and  took  a  fellowship  at  Oriel  College.  But 
he  drank  deep  of  the  fountains  of  classical 

[4] 


The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold 

literature  and  poetry.  In  one  sense  of  the 
word,  at  least,  he  is  the  most  classic  of  the 
Victorian  poets.  In  poetry,  as  in  criticism, 
he  looked  back  to  the  Greeks  as  his  models, 
and  his  love  of  clearness,  of  order  and  restraint, 
of  firm  outline  and  polished  phrase,  are  largely 
due  to  his  long  and  loving  study  of  the  ancient 
masters. 

There  were,  however,  other  influences  upon 
his  youth  than  that  of  the  Greeks.  Foremost 
of  these,  perhaps,  was  the  influence  of  Goethe. 
No  other  English  poet  reveals  in  the  same  de- 
gree as  Arnold  the  deep  impression  left  on 
modern  life  and  thought  by  the  greatest  of  all 
modern  poets  since  Shakespeare.  What  ap- 
pealed to  him  especially  in  Goethe  was  the 
keen  insight  into  the  problems  of  life,  the 
serene  and  lofty  spirit  that  rose  above  the  tur- 
moil of  the  world,  the  mingled  strength  and 
sweetness  of  the  poet's  nature.  In  prose  and 
verse  Arnold  is  never  weary  of  paying  homage 
to  his  master. 

[5] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

"He  took  the  suffering  human  race. 
He  read  each  wound,  each  weakness  clear; 
And  struck  his  finger  on  the  place, 
And  said:  Thou  ailest  here,  and  here! 
He  look'd  on  Europe's  dying  hour 
Of  fitful  dream  and  feverish  power; 
His  eye  plunged  down  the  weltering  strife. 
The  turmoil  of  expiring  life  — 
He  said :  The  end  is  everywhere  — 
Art  still  has  truth,  take  refuge  there! 
And  he  was  happy,  if  to  know 
Causes  of  things,  and  far  below 
His  feet  to  see  the  lurid  flow 
Of  terror,  and  insane  distress, 
And  headlong  fate,  be  happiness." 

Even  more  important,  perhaps,  in  its  in- 
fluence on  the  young  Arnold  was  the  poetry 
and  personality  of  Wordsworth.  Of  all  the 
poets  of  the  revolutionary  period,  Words- 
worth has  exercised  the  greatest  power  over 
his  successors  in  English  literature.  Indeed, 
with  the  exception  of  Browning,  the  most 
original  and  independent  of  them  all,  there  is 
hardly  a  poet,  before  the  advent  of  the  Pre- 

.  [6] 


The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold 

raphaelites,  who  does  not  show  strong  traces 
of  his  masterful  sway.  But  no  other  poet 
was  so  reverent  a  disciple  of  Wordsworth  as 
Matthew  Arnold.  This  was  due  not  merely 
to  the  instinctive  worship  which  boyhood  pays 
to  genius,  though  the  long  sojourns  of  the 
Arnolds  in  the  region  where  every  flower,  and 
rock,  and  stream  was  sanctified  by  Words- 
worth's song  may  have  laid  the  foundations 
of  his  discipleship.  It  was  mainly  because 
Wordsworth  had  found  the  secret  which  Arnold 
sought  after  in  vain  —  the  secret  whose  mys- 
tery wrung  from  him  at  times  his  most  lyrical 
cry.  One  word  appears  again  and  again  in 
Arnold's  verse  —  "calm."  Throughout  his 
battle  with  the  crushing  influences  of  the  world, 
in  all  his  doubts  and  agonies  of  spirit,  Arnold 
looked  forward  to  this  goal.  It  was  nottriumph, 
or  knowledge,  or  love  that  Arnold  prayed  for, 
but  serene,  unshaken  repose,  attained  after 
the  storms  of  life  by  self-mastery  of  spirit. 
And  Wordsworth  had  not  only  attained  this 

in 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

calm,  but  seemed  to  have  the  power,  in  happy 
moments,  to  guide  his  followers  to  the  same 
desired  haven. 

"He  found  us  when  the  age  had  bound 
Our  souls  in  its  benumbing  round; 
He  spoke,  and  loosed  our  heart  in  tears. 
He  laid  us  as  we  lay  at  birth 
On  the  cool  flowery  lap  of  earth, 
Smiles  broke  from  us  and  we  had  ease; 
The  hills  were  round  us,  and  the  breeze 
Went  o'er  the  sun-lit  fields  again; 
Our  foreheads  felt  the  wind  and  rain. 
Our  youth  return'd;  for  there  was  shed 
On  spirits  that  had  long  been  dead, 
Spirits  dried  up  and  closely  furl'd. 
The  freshness  of  the  early  world." 

No  account  of  the  forces  that  went  to  mold 
the  character  of  Matthew  Arnold  would  be 
complete  which  neglected  the  influence  exerted 
upon  him  by  his  father.  In  some  respects 
the  two  were  far  apart.  Dr.  Arnold,  with  all 
his  genuine  goodness,  was  something  of  a 
PhiHstine  — so  much  so,  that  some  mocking 

[8] 


The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold 

critic  characterized  Matthew,  the  deadly  enemy 
of  Philistia,  as  "David,  the  son  of  GoHath." 
He  was  somewhat  hard,  somewhat  narrow, 
not  only  a  sincere  believer  in  orthodox  Chris- 
tianity, but  one  of  its  foremost  champions 
against  the  new  spirit  of  doubt.  At  the  first 
glance  it  is  the  difference,  rather  than  the  like- 
ness, between  father  and  son  that  is  apparent. 
But  one  need  not  be  a  profound  student  of 
Matthew  Arnold  to  recognize  the  paternal 
qualities  in  his  work  and  character.  From 
his  father  came  his  sincerity,  his  moral  earnest- 
ness, his  care  for  conduct  —  in  short,  all  the 
Hebraic  elements  of  his  nature.  With  all  his 
championship  of  Hellenism  Matthew  Arnold 
was,  one  feels,  rather  a  Jew  than  a  Greek,  more 
at  home  with  Saint  Paul  than  with  Socrates. 
Something  more  than  mere  filial  reverence  in- 
spires the  noble  memorial  verses  written  by 
his  father's  grave.  There  is  spiritual  sym- 
pathy as  well  as  profound  admiration  in  the 
lines  which  tell  of  the  strength  "  zealous,  benefi- 

[9] 


Studies  of  a  BooMover 

cent,  firm,"  that  marked  the  elder  Arnold's 
hold  on  life.  And  it  was  in  such  servants,  or 
rather  sons,  of  God  as  his  father  that  the  poet 
recognized  the  predestined  leaders  of  mankind 
to  whom  he  addressed  the  apostrophe  which 
closes  Rugby  Chapel. 

"In  the  hour  of  need 
Of  your  fainting,  dispirited  race. 
Ye,  like  angels,  appear. 
Radiant  with  ardor  divine! 
Beacons  of  hope,  ye  appear! 
Languor  is  not  in  your  heart. 
Weakness  is  not  in  your  word. 
Weariness  not  on  your  brow. 
Ye  alight  in  our  van !    At  your  voice. 
Panic,  despair,  flee  away. 

Ye  fill  up  the  gaps  in  our  files. 
Strengthen  the  wavering  line, 
Stablish,  continue  our  march. 
On,  to  the  bound  of  the  waste. 
On,  to  the  City  of  God." 

Such  were  the  influences  under  which  the 
young  poet  brought  out  in  1849  his  first  book 
of  verse.  The  Strayed  Reveller  and  other  Poems. 

[10] 


The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold 

It  fell,  as  has  been  said,  still-born  from  the 
press.  The  same  fate,  to  be  sure,  has  attended 
many  first  volumes  of  verse,  but  few  have  de- 
served it  less.  Browning  and  Tennyson  are, 
no  doubt,  greater  poets  than  Arnold,  but  only 
a  prophet  after  the  event  would  be  able  to 
discern  more  of  promise  in  the  incoherent 
beauties  of  Pauline,  or  in  the  somewhat 
thoughtless  rhymes  and  fancies  of  Poems, 
Chiefly  Lyrical,  than  in  this  little  volume, 
while  in  actual  performance  It  fairly  beats 
them  out  of  the  field.  Setting  aside  the  title 
poem,  a  series  of  pictures  loosely  strung  to- 
gether in  the  irregular  rhymeless  metre  that 
Arnold  was  so  fond  of,  we  have  here  the  splen- 
did sonnet  to  Shakespeare,  the  strong  and  finely 
finished  Mycerinus,  the  magic  melodies  of 
The  New  Sirens,  and  the  grave  pathos  of  The 
Sick  King  in  Bokhara.  And  there  are  even 
finer  things  in  the  book. 

The  Forsaken  Merman,  for  example,  is  a 
permanent    addition    to    English    literature. 

[11] 


Studies  of  a  BooMover 

How  good  it  is  may,  perhaps,  be  best  ascer- 
tained by  a  comparison  with  Tennyson's  early 
poems,  the  Merman  and  the  Mermaid.  It  is 
hard  to  praise  with  discretion  the  vivid  clear- 
ness of  its  pictures,  the  haunting  music  of  its 
changing  rhythms,  and,  best  and  rarest  of  all, 
the  passionate  cry  of  its  wild,  immortal,  yet 
strangely  human  pathos.  One,  at  least,  of 
the  shorter  lyrics  in  this  volume  shows  Arnold 
for  a  brief  space  under  the  influence  of  Shelley, 
and  it  is  to  be  regretted  that  he  did  not  yield 
oftener  to  the  spell.  A  Question  is  so  purely 
Shelleyan  that  it  might  almost  be  classed  with 
some  of  the  minor  songs  of  the  master  lyrist. 
But  after  all  Arnold  at  his  best  has  a  style  of 
his  own  which  is  more  delightful  than  any 
faint  Shelleyan  echoes.  Of  that  style  we  need 
not  attempt  a  definition;  an  example  will 
serve  our  purpose  better,  and  the  lovely  and 
gracious  words  fairly  tempt  the  pen  to  tran- 
scribe them. 

[12] 


The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold 

"Thin,  thin  the  pleasant  human  noises  grow. 

And  faint  the  city  gleams; 
Rare  the  lone  pastoral  huts  —  marvel  not  thou ! 
The  solemn  peaks  but  to  the  stars  are  known, 
But  to  the  stars,  and  the  cold  lunar  beams ; 
Alone  the  sun  arises,  and  alone 

Spring  the  great  streams." 

Walter  Bagehot  once  wrote  an  interesting 
and  suggestive  essay  on  the  pure,  the  ornate, 
and  the  grotesque  styles  in  English  poetry. 
Tennyson  serves  him  well  for  the  ornate, 
some  carefully  chosen  passages  of  Browning 
furnish  striking  specimens  of  the  grotesque, 
and  for  examples  of  the  pure  style  he  goes 
back  to  Wordsworth  and  to  Milton.  But  he 
need  not  have  gone  so  far,  for  here,  in  the 
first  work  of  Arnold,  w^e  have,  and  not  for 
the  last  time,  a  specimen  of  the  pure  style 
almost  at  its  best.  It  is  as  classic  as  a  statue 
by  Praxiteles.  Not  a  word  can  be  added,  not 
a  word  can  be  altered;  the  pictorial  and  musical 
qualities  blend  in  perfect  harmony,  and  the 

[13] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

grave  music  of  the  verse  gives  fit  utterance  to 
the  solemn  beauty  of  the  thought. 

The  last  poem  of  the  collection,  though  by 
no  means  the  most  perfect,  is  perhaps  the  most 
remarkable,  and  in  many  ways  the  most 
characteristic  in  the  book.  Resignation  is  the 
first  poem  where  the  distinctive  Arnoldian 
undertone  of  grave  and  thoughtful  melancholy 
vibrates  throughout.  Here,  too,  we  have  in 
quintessence  Arnold's  whole  poetic  philoso- 
phy: the  immutability  of  nature  and  of  her 
laws,  the  restless  longing  of  the  heart  of  man, 
the  vanity  of  this  longing  and  of  all  struggle 
to  realize  it,  the  duty  of  renunciation  and  en- 
durance, the  aid  which  nature  offers  in  the 
effort  to  endure,  and  the  final  reward  of  re- 
nunciation in  the  attainment  of  "quiet,  and  a 
fearless  mind."  It  is  not  a  very  cheerful  phil- 
osophy for  a  young  man  of  twenty-seven,  but 
to  Arnold,  at  all  times  of  his  life,  the  world  was 
not  a  cheerful,  though  far  from  an  unlovely, 
place. 

[14] 


The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold 

"  The  mute  turf  we  tread, 
The  solemn  hills  around  us  spread, 
This  stream  which  falls  incessantly, 
The  strange-scrawl'd  rocks,  the  lonely  sky, 
If  I  might  lend  their  life  a  voice. 
Seem  to  bear  rather  than  rejoice." 

The  characteristic  notes  and  beauties  of  this 
volume  appear  again  and  again  in  Arnold's 
later  poems;  Arnold  developed,  indeed,  and 
increased  his  powers,  but  he  remained  essen- 
tially the  same.  There  is  no  such  change  in 
him  as  we  find  between  the  Browning  of 
Pauline  and  the  Browning  of  The  Ring  and 
the  Book,  or  between  the  Tennyson  of  Lilian 
or  The  Sea-Fairies  and  the  Tennyson  of  Riz- 
pah  or  Vastness. 

Arnold's  second  volume,  Empedocles  on  Etna 
and  other  Poems,  appeared  in  1852,  and  was 
hastily  withdrawn  from  circulation  by  the 
author.  The  reason  for  this  appears  to  have 
been  that  he  could  not  bear  to  contemplate 
the  title-piece  in  print.  "A  situation,"  he 
said,  "in  which  a  continuous  state  of  mental 

[15] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

distress  is  prolonged,  unrelieved  by  incident, 
hope,  or  resistance,  is  in  actual  life  painful, 
not  tragic,  and  its  representation  in  poetry  is 
painful  also."  This  is  no  doubt  true,  and, 
moreover,  it  must  be  confessed  that  Emped- 
ocles  as  a  drama,  even  as  a  closet  drama,  is 
quite  impossible.  But  the  poem  may  be  re- 
garded in  another  light  than  as  a  drama,  and 
all  lovers  of  true  poetry  owe  deep  gratitude  to 
Robert  Browning,  who  persuaded  Arnold  to 
reprint  in  1867  this  long-suppressed  work.  It 
contains  in  the  long  monologue  of  the  hero 
"  the  noblest  exposition,"  to  quote  Swinburne's 
words,  "  of  the  gospel  of  avrapKeia,  the  creed  of 
self-sufficience,  which  sees  for  man  no  clearer 
or  deeper  duty  than  that  of  intellectual  self- 
reliance,  self-dependence,  self-respect."  Even 
those  who  reject  this  gospel  of  self-suflBcience 
as  inadequate  may  appreciate  the  dignity  of 
its  ideas  and  the  grave  beauty  of  the  words  in 
which  they  are  presented.  Of  the  lovely 
group  of  songs  put  into  the  mouth  of  Callicles 

[16] 


The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold 

there  can  be  but  one  opinion  —  they  are  flaw- 
less gems  in  the  crown  of  Enghsh  lyric  poetry. 
And  their  beauty  is  enhanced  by  the  perfect 
propriety  of  their  setting.  Arnold  loved  to 
finish  his  longer  poems  with  some  specially 
fine  bit  of  verse,  not  always  very  closely  con- 
nected with  the  main  subject.  The  classical 
example,  of  course,  is  the  superb  finale  of 
Sohrah  and  Rustum;  but  even  that  great  pas- 
sage yields  in  dramatic  propriety  to  the  last 
song  of  Callicles.  After  the  bitterness  of 
human  anguish,  after  the  flame  and  smoke 
of  Etna,  comes  Apollo  with  his  choir,  comes 

"The  night  in  her  silence. 
The  stars  in  their  calm." 

Tristram  and  Iseult,  next  to  Empedocles  the 
longest  poem  of  this  volume,  is  by  no  means 
the  best.  It  is  Arnold's  first  attempt  at  narra- 
tive poetry,  and  though  he  was  more  success- 
ful in  narrative  than  in  the  drama,  he  can 
hardly  be  called  a  master  in  the  art  of  telling 
a  story  in  verse.     There  are  many  beautiful 

[17] 


Studies  of  a  Booliover 

passages  in  this  poem,  chiefly  lyrical  or  de- 
scriptive, but  it  breaks  down  at  the  very  climax. 
Arnold  had  a  strange  deficiency  of  ear,  though 
at  his  best  none  of  his  contemporaries  was 
master  of  a  finer  music,  and  in  tliis  poem  he 
chose  to  embody  the  parting  words  of  the  ill- 
starred  lovers  in  a  jingUng  trochaic  metre  that 
jars  on  every  sense  of  the  fitness  of  things. 

Iseult. 
"  Tristram,  ah,  for  love  of  Heaven,  speak  kindly ! 
What,  I  hear  these  bitter  words  from  thee  ? 
Sick  with  grief  I  am,  and  faint  with  travel  — 
Take  my  hand  —  dear  Tristram,  look  on  me! 

Tristram. 
I  forgot,  thou  comest  from  thy  voyage. — " 

The  truth  is  that  Arnold,  one  of  the  least 
passionate  of  Enghsh  poets,  simply  could  not 
conceive  such  a  situation  as  this,  and  his 
attempt  to  portray  what  he  had  neither  seen 
nor  felt  was  fore-doomed  to  failure.  A  pas- 
sage in  the  third  part  of  the  poem  probably 
represents  his  own  Nnew  of  such  a  love  as  that 
of  Tristram  and  Iseult. 

[18] 


The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold 

"I  swear,  it  angers  me  to  see 
How  this  fool  passion  gulls  men  potently; 
Being,  in  truth,  but  a  diseased  unrest, 
And  an  unnatural  overheat  at  best." 

That  is  a  philosophic  and,  possibly,  a  correct 
view;  but  it  is  hardly  capable  of  poetic  treat- 
ment. To  do  Arnold  justice  he  seems  to  have 
realized  his  own  deficiencies  in  this  matter. 
The  passion  of  love,  which  plays  so  large  a  part 
in  the  poetry  of  Browning  and  of  Tennyson, 
is  almost  entirely  absent  from  his  verse.  Its 
place  is  taken  sometimes  by  tender  affection, 
oftener  by  hopeless  longing.  Never  after  his 
failure  in  TriMram  and  Iseidt  did  he  attempt 
to  handle  a  great  and  passionate  love-story. 

Two  of  the  most  noteworthy  poems  of  this 
volume  are  the  Memorial  Verses  and  the 
Stanzas  in  Memory  of  the  Author  of  Obermann. 
Both  belong,  as  their  titles  show,  to  the  group 
of  elegiac  poems  which  go  so  far  to  estabhsh 
Arnold's  rank  as  a  poet.  Something  more 
must  be  said  of  this  group  in  the  closing  esti- 

[19] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

mate  of  Arnold's  work.  It  is  enough  for  the 
present  to  point  out  that  these  two  poems,  both 
for  conception  and  execution,  for  pohshed 
beauty  of  word  and  grave  dignity  of  thought, 
stand  very  high  in  the  group  to  which  they 
belong. 

Two  other  poems  in  this  volume  deserve 
more  than  a  passing  mention.  A  Summer 
Night  is,  perhaps,  the  very  highest  poetic  ex- 
pression of  the  mingled  despair  and  fortitude, 
the  disgust  with  the  world  and  the  rehef  to  be 
found  in  the  contemplation  of  nature,  which 
go  to  make  up  the  essential  undertone  of  most 
of  Arnold's  verse.  And  the  technical  excel- 
lences of  the  poem,  as  always  happens  when 
Arnold  is  possessed  by  his  theme,  are  the  per- 
fect reflection  of  the  underlying  thought.  The 
lovely  moonlit  night-piece  with  which  the 
poem  opens,  the  contrast  which  it  draws  be- 
tween the  slave  of  life  and  the  rebel,  are  equally 
fine  in  thought  and  word;  and  it  rises  to  a  fit 
climax   of   supreme   lyrical   utterance   in   the 

[20] 


The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold 

noble  apostrophe  to  the  heavens  which  forms 
its  close. 

The  poem  known  under  the  various  titles 
of  To  Marguerite  —  In  returning  a  volume  of 
Letters,  Isolation,  "and  To  Marguerite  —  Con- 
tinued, is,  I  think,  the  loveliest  of  Arnold's 
poems  of  love.  And  it  is  worth  noting  that 
this  poem  deals,  not  with  the  rapture  of  posses- 
sion, nor  with  the  unutterable  sadness  of  re- 
membered kisses  after  death,  but  with  the 
sense  of  that  predestined  solitude  of  the  soul 
which  even  love  is  unable  to  overcome.  The 
theme  is  the  same  as  that  of  Browning's  Two 
in  the  Campagna,  and  nothing  can  show  more 
clearly  the  difference  between  the  character 
and  art  of  the  two  great  poets  than  a  com- 
parison of  the  elder  singer's  strong  and  vibrat- 
ing emotion,  full  of  the  sense  of  infinite  passion 
and  the  pain  of  finite  hearts,  with  the  melan- 
choly acceptance  by  the  younger  of  the  solemn 
laws  under  which  "we  mortal  millions  live 
alone."     From  the  point  of  view  of  pure  poetry, 

[21] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

at  least,  the  comparison  does  not  turn  out  to 
Arnold's  disadvantage;  the  closing  phrase,  in 
which  all  the  depth,  and  bitterness,  and  sad 
estranging  power  of  the  sea  are  caught  up  in 
three  words,  may  challenge  a  place  among  the 
greatest  single  lines  of  English  poetry. 

How  any  poet  could  have  the  heart  to  with- 
draw such  a  volume  from  the  public  is  inex- 
plicable except  on  the  theory  that  he  retired 
in  order  to  make  his  entrance  more  effective 
when  next  he  appeared  in  the  lists.  The  with- 
drawal, at  any  rate,  was  short,  for  in  the  next 
year,  1853,  Arnold  put  forth  another  volume, 
omitting,  indeed,  Empedocles  and  some  other 
poems,  but  reprinting  a  fair  selection  from  his 
earlier  work,  and  adding  several  new  poems  of 
great  worth  and  beauty. 

The  longest  and  most  pretentious  of  these 
is  Sohrab  and  Rustum.  This  is  admittedly 
the  best  of  Arnold's  narrative  poems,  and  by 
some  critics  it  is  ranked  as  the  first  of  all  his 
works.     This,  however,  is  an  opinion  which 

[22] 


The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold 

seems  to  be  based  on  theory  rather  than  on 
fact.  The  epic  is,  perhaps,  the  highest  form 
of  poetry,  and  undoubtedly  this  poem  is 
Arnold's  nearest  approach  to  epic  height. 
But  in  art  a  success,  even  along  lower  lines, 
outweighs  an  ambitious  but  unattaining  effort. 
And  that  Sohrah  and  Rustum,  in  spite  of  its 
manifold  beauties,  its  stately  verse,  its  noble 
imagery,  and  well-conducted  story,  does  not 
quite  attain  will  be  clear,  it  seems  to  me,  to 
anyone  who  compares  it  with  the  true  epic 
tone  in  ancient  or  modern  verse,  with  the 
wrath  and  sorrow  of  Achilles,  with  the  love 
and  vengeance  of  Kriemhild,  with  the  passion 
of  battle  and  of  loyalty  that  rings  through  the 
last  canto  of  Marmion.  The  situation  is  one 
of  the  most  pathetic  in  literature;  but  where 
is  the  thrill  of  vital  sympathy  to  make  us  feel 
it  ?  Where  is  the  divine  creative  power  to  put 
life  into  the  stately  but  shadowy  figures  of 
father  and  son  caught  in  the  toils  of  Fate? 
Sohrah  and  Rustum  is  a  noble  poem  —  one 

[23] 


Studies  of  a  BooMover 

that  we  can  read  and  re-read  with  increasing 
appreciation.  But  what  we  feel  is  rather 
admiration  for  the  chaste  and  poHshed  art  of 
the  poet,  than  the  hving  presence  of  that 
fierce  and  tragic  power  which,  in  the  true  epic, 
grips  and  carries  us  whither  it  will. 

At  least  two  of  the  lyrics  of  this  volume 

would  suffice  to  save  a  poet  from  complete 

f  orgetf  ulness :    Philomela,    in    which    Arnold 

catches  the  passion,  as  surely  as  Keats  did  the 

magic,    of    the    nightingale's    song,    and    the 

wonderful  Requiescat.     Of  such  a  poem  as  this 

j  last  it  is  useless  to  speak.     If  a  reader  cannot 

1  see  its  flawless  perfection ;  if  he  cannot  feel  its 

\  tender  beauty  and  solemn  pathos,  culminating, 

^  as  it  does,  in  one  inevitable  and  unforgetable 

line,  he  is  indeed  to  be  pitied,  but  not  to  be 

argued  with. 

The  Church  of  Brou,  on  the  other  hand, 
shares  with  Tristram  the  distinction  of  being 
one  of  Arnold's  few  uneven,  one  might  al- 
most say  unsatisfactory,  poems.      It  was  ap- 

[24] 


The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold 

parently  written  some  years  before  the  pub- 
lication of  the  volume,  and  its  early  date  may 
account  for  the  triviality  of  its  first  and  the  in- 
adequacy of  its  second  part.  But  the  close  is 
in  Arnold's  best  vein.  Here,  as  seldom  in  his 
verse,  the  tender  note  of  human  affection 
vibrates  through  the  soft  reposeful  beauty  of 
the  words.  It  is  quite  worth  while  to  read 
through  the  earlier  parts  for  the  shock  of 
pleased  surprise  that  comes  with  the  opening 
invocation  of  the  third, 

"So  rest,  for  ever  rest,  O  princely  Pair!" 

And  surprise  gives  way  to  a  reverent  thank- 
fulness for  such  a  precious  gift  of  song,  as  we 
approach  the  noble  climax  and  listen  with  the 
buried  lovers  to  the  passage  of  the  angel's 
wings, 

"  And  on  the  lichen-crusted  leads  above 
The  rustle  of  the  eternal  rain  of  love." 

The  crowning  glory  of  the  whole  volume  is 
The  Scholar-Gipsy,  but  we  may  defer  com- 

[25] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

ment  on  this  poem  till  we  can  consider  it  along 
with  its  companion  piece,  Thyrsis. 

Two  years  later,  in  1855,  Arnold  published 
a  second  series  of  selections  from  his  earlier 
poems,  adding  to  them  only  one  short  song  of 
little  value,  and  the  long  narrative  of  Balder 
Dead.  This  poem  has  had  the  good  fortune 
to  be  praised  by  Mr.  Henley,  no  mean  judge 
of  poetry  and  somewhat  sparing  of  his  praise. 
But  one  can  hardly  agree  with  him  that  Balder 
Dead  was  "  written  in  Arnold's  most  fortunate 
hour."  Whatever  has  been  said  in  praise  of 
Sohrab  and  Riistum  may  be  repeated  of  this 
poem.  But  it  has,  if  possible,  even  less  of  life 
than  its  predecessor.  All  the  world,  runs  the 
old  story,  wept  for  Balder's  death;  but  it  is 
hard  to  imagine  that  any  human  being  was 
ever  moved  to  tears  by  Arnold's  version  of  the 
strange,  sad  tale.  Its  artificial  beauties, "  faultily 
faultless,  icily  regular,  splendidly  null,"  leave 
most  of  us  as  cold  as  the  waste  of  snow  that  Her- 
mod  traversed  on  his  way  to  Hela's  realm. 

[26] 


The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold 

The  year  1858  saw  the  appearance  of  the 
one  work  of  Arnold's  which  must  be  pro- 
nounced a  hopeless  failure.  Merope  is  an  at- 
tempt to  reproduce  in  English  the  old  Greek 
drama.  Imitations  are,  as  a  rule,  fore-doomed 
to  failure,  and  of  all  imitations  that  of  the 
Greek  drama  in  modem  English  seems  the 
most  hopeless.  In  the  nineteenth  century,  at 
any  rate,  there  has  been  but  one  approach  to 
success  in  numberless  attempts,  Swinburne's 
Atalanta  in  Calydon.  It  is  not  worth  while 
in  this  place  to  discuss  the  reason  for  such 
failure;  better  to  lay  Merope  aside  and  pass  on 
to  Arnold's  last  book  of  verse. 

This  was  the  New  Poems  pubUshed  in  1867, 
the  year  in  which  Arnold  laid  down  his  profes- 
sorship of  poetry  at  Oxford.  The  book  falls 
naturally  into  three  parts  —  the  sonnets,  the 
lyrics  rhymed  and  rhymeless,  and  the  elegies. 
Perhaps  no  single  one  of  the  sonnets  quite 
equals  the  great  apostrophe  to  Shakespeare  in 
the  first  volume,  but  the  group  as  a  whole  out- 

[27] 


Studies  of  a  BooMover 

ranks  its  earlier  fellows.  Several  of  them  are 
particularly  distinguished  by  the  depth  and 
sincerity  of  the  religious  sentiment  which 
breathes  through  them  —  a  sentiment  which 
shows  a  better,  and  essentially  a  truer,  side  of 
Arnold  than  the  reckless  flippancy  of  many 
of  his  controversial  writings. 

The  lyrics  of  the  collection  are,  with  one 
exception,  hardly  up  to  the  earlier  standard. 
But  that  exception  is  so  excellent  that  it  alone 
would  save  the  volume;  it  is  Dover  Beach. 
Here  once  more  we  have  Arnold  at  his  best, 
thought,  word,  and  rhythm  blending  in  the 
perfect  song.  It  is  hard  to  know  what  to 
praise  most  in  the  poem,  the  glorious  picture  of 
the  moonlight  and  the  floodtide,  the  "  passionate 
interpretation  of  nature"  which  catches  in  the 
tremulous  cadence  of  the  waves  the  eternal 
note  of  sadness,  or  the  famous  simile  of  the 
ebbing  sea  of  faith.  And  besides  all  these 
there  is  one  supreme  touch  in  this  lyric  which 
gives  it  a  unique  place  among  all  Arnold's 

[28] 


The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold 

poems  —  the  human  cry  with  which  the  last 

stanza  opens, 

"Ah,  love,  let  us  be  true 
To   one   another ! " 

Here  for  once  the  sad,  proud  consciousness 
of  isolation  gives  way  to  the  sense  of  human 
sympathy  and  comradeship  in  all  disastrous 
fight.  For  once  we  note  in  Arnold  the  pres- 
ence of  the  idea  which  the  great  symbolic 
painter  of  our  day  has  embodied  immortally 
in  "Love  and  Life." 

It  is  after  all,  however,  the  elegies  which 
give  to  this  volume  its  distinctive  note.  Of 
these,  Heine  s  Grave,  in  spite  of  the  fine  and 
often  quoted  passage  on  the  weary  Titan,  is 
the  least  satisfactory.  It  is  written  in  the 
irregular  rhymeless  verse  that  had  such  a 
dangerous  fascination  for  Arnold.  Rugby 
Chapel  is  in  the  same  metre,  but  here  the  poet 
is  really  possessed  by  his  theme,  and  the  result 
is  a  very  noble  tribute  to  the  dead  —  notice- 
able among  all  of  Arnold's  elegies  for  the  ex- 

[29] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

plicit  testimony  it  bears  to  his  belief  in  im- 
mortality.    The  Stanzas  from  Carnac  and  A 
Southern  Night  are  memorials  to  his  brother, 
the  latter  a  very  beautiful  lament,  flooded,  like 
so  many  of  Arnold's  poems,  with  moonhght, 
and  murmurous  with  the  sound  of  the   sea. 
Obermann  Once  More  and  the  Sta7izas  from 
the  Grande  Chartreuse  are  naturally  connected 
by  their  theme,  the  lament  for  a  dead  faith. 
Obermann  is  somewhat  too  long.    The  shadowy 
personage  who  gives  the  poem  its  name  dis- 
courses through  nine  pages  on  the  rise   and 
fall  of  religion,  on  present  despair  and  on  hope 
for  the  future.     The  first  part  of  his  speech, 
indeed,  is  already  a  classic;  everyone  knows 
the  famous  stanzas  that  tell  of  the  hard  Pagan 
world,  the  brooding  East,  the  miraculous  con- 
quests,   and   slow,   reluctant   death   of   Chris- 
tianity.    But  the   remainder  of  the   poem   is 
somewhat   diffuse   and   contrasts   unfavorably 
with  the  terser,  stronger  close  of  the  Obermann 
poem  of  1852.     The  Stanzas  from  the  Grande 

[30] 


The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold 

Chartreuse,  however,  are  not  open  to  the 
charge  of  diffuseness.  Indeed,  it  is  hard  to 
see  what  charge  the  lover  of  pure  and  thought- 
ful poetry  could  bring  against  them.  We  have 
in  them  the  highest  expression  in  the  elegiac 
mood  of  the  theme  that  Arnold  treated  with 
supreme  lyric  power  in  Dover  Beach.  They  are 
a  revelation  of  the  poet's  own  divided  mind. 

"  Wandering  between  two  worlds,  one  dead,  f 
The  other  powerless  to  be  born."  % 

But  they  are  something  more  than  that.  The 
poem,  as  a  whole,  is  a  typical,  one  might 
almost  say  the  typical,  utterance  of  the  Middle 
Victorian  era,  a  period  when  rationalistic 
science  seemed  to  be  carrying  all  before  it. 
The  calm  assumption  that  the  Christian  faith 
is  only  "  a  dead  time's  exploded  dream"  is  by 
no  means  peculiar  to  Arnold.  It  marks  much 
of  the  thought  of  his  day.  What  is  peculiar 
to  Arnold  is  his  sincere  regret  for  the  vanished 
past,  his  instinctive  repugnance  to  the  hardness 

[31] 


Studies  of  a  BooMover 

and  loudness  of  the  new  age,  even  though  he 
beUeves  that  the  age  is  right.  This  attitude 
is  disclosed  even  more  plainly  in  the  remark- 
able poem,  Bacchanalia,  which  is  also  included 
in  this  volume. 

And  now  we  come  to  Thyrsis,  with  its  pre- 
decessor. The  Scholar-Gipsy.  Here,  it  would 
seem,  if  anywhere,  we  have  the  noblest  work 
of  Arnold.  Serene  beauty  of  thought,  tender 
melancholy  of  mood,  perfect  fitness  of  expres- 
sion, and  harmonious  rhythm,  characterize 
both  these  poems  and  characterize  them 
throughout.  There  are  no  languors,  no  de- 
pressions, no  passages  of  prose  thrown  into 
metrical  form.  The  famous  simile  with  which 
The  Scholar-Gipsy  closes  is  far  from  being 
the  "purple  patch"  it  has  irreverently  been 
styled.  One  cannot  sew  a  purple  patch  upon 
a  robe  of  Tyrian  dye;  and,  fine  as  the  closing 
stanzas  are,  they  yield  in  excellence  to  some 
of  the  earlier  pictures  of  English  life  and 
scenery.     Two  beauties  we  may  note  common 

[32] 


The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold 

to  both  these  poems :  Arnold's  loving  memories 
of  his  Alma  Mater;  and  his  deep  and  almost 
sensuous  delight  in  aspects  of  nature  insep- 
arably blended  with  those  memories.  Arnold 
has  apostrophized  Oxford  in  a  famous  prose 
passage,  but  all  that  he  says  there  is  packed 
into  one  line  of  Thyrsis, 

"That  sweet  city  with  her  dreaming  spires." 

The  loving  sympathy  with  nature  apparent 
in  almost  every  line  of  these  poems  it  is  im- 
possible to  praise  too  highly.  The  picture  in 
Thyrsis  of  a  rain-drenched  English  garden 
with  its  storm-vexed  trees  and  fallen  chestnut 
flowers  is  a  masterpiece  of  poetic  word-paint- 
ing. Hardly  less  delightful  is  the  vision  of 
the  moonlit  ferry  on  the  stripling  Thames  in 
The  Scholar-Gipsy,  or  the  night-piece  in 
which  the  line  of  festal  light  in  Christ-Church 
hall  shines  through  the  driving  snow-storm  on 
the  Cumner  hills.  And  for  once  in  Arnold's 
work  the  wonted  opposition  between  the  rest- 

[33] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

less,  turbulent  soul  of  man  and  the  sweet  calm 
of  nature  disappears.  In  these  two  poems 
nature  and  man  blend  together  in  a  perfect 
harmony. 

Poetry  like  this  tempts  one  to  linger  over  it. 
There  is  much  that  might  be  said.  It  is  hard 
to  pass  without  mention  Arnold's  striking 
success  in  adapting  the  conventions  of  the 
antique  pastoral  elegy  to  a  lament  for  a  modern 
poet.  Something,  too,  one  would  like  to  say 
on  the  gleam  of  hope  that  lights  the  close  of 
Thyrsis,  faint,  indeed,  when  compared  with 
the  sun-burst  that  exalts  and  glorifies  the  final 
stanzas  of  Adonais,  but  not  without  a  tender 
beauty  of  its  own.  But  all  one  can  do  is  to 
recommend  these  elegies  to  every  lover  of  pure 
poetry.  They  will  serve  as  an  unfailing  test 
of  a  reader's  power  to  appreciate  poetry  for 
its  own  sake. 

Westminster  Abbey,  the  elegy  on  Arnold's 
school  friend,  Dean  Stanley,  is  a  noble  poem, 
but  after  Thyrsis  it  seems  a  little  cold,  a  little 

[34] 


The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold 

artijQcial.  The  group  of  poems  on  the  house- 
hold pets,  Geist,  Matthias,  and  Kaiser,  de- 
serves, at  least,  a  passing  mention.  Here  a 
very  different  Arnold  is  revealed  from  the 
Arnold  of  the  poems  or  the  essays.  It  is  the 
Arnold  whom  only  his  intimates  knew  — 
gentle,  affectionate,  playful,  and  not  without 
a  trace  of  kindly  humor,  the  centre  of  a  pleasant 
company  of  cats  and  canaries,  and  children 
and  dachshunds.  They  are  not  without  true 
poetic  merit,  these  little  poems;  but  their  chief 
value  lies  in  the  revelation  which  they  make  of 
a  new  and  more  genial  side  of  the  poet's  mind 
and  life. 

Some  of  the  characteristic  beauties  and 
defects  of  Arnold  have  been  revealed  by  this 
critical  examination  of  his  successive  volumes. 
But  a  brief  summary  may  serve  to  gather  up 
the  results  so  far  attained  and  to  fix  them  in 
the  reader's  mind. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  easy  to  say  what 
Arnold  was  not.     He  was  not  a  great  narrative 

[35] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

poet.     No   need,    after   all,   to   compare   him 
with  the  great  masters  of  the  epic  —  his  own 
contemporaries  surpassed  him  again  and  again. 
Matthew  Arnold  could  no  more  have  written 
How  They  Brought  the  Good  News  from  Ghent 
to  Aix  or  The  Revenge  than  he  could  have  writ- 
ten the  Iliad  or  Paradise  Lost ;  and  this  in  spite 
of  his  theory  that  "  the  eternal  objects  of  poetry 
are  actions  —  human  actions."     But  Arnold, 
like    his    master,    Wordsworth,    achieves    the 
best  results  when  he  departs  from  theory  and 
surrenders  himself  to  instinct  and  inspiration. 
He  was  not  himself  a  man  of  action,  nor  was 
he  capable  of  sympathizing  with  action,  except 
theoretically.  He  disliked  and  distrusted  nearly 
all  the  great  actors  in  the  social  and  pohtical 
movements  of  his  day.     Small  wonder,  then, 
that  his  narrative  poems  interest  us  by  their 
beauty  of  form,  by  their  lyrical,  descriptive,  or 
meditative   passages  —  by   anything   in   short, 
rather  than  by  the  human  actions  which  they 
portray. 

[36] 


The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold 

Again  Arnold  is  not  a  dramatic  poet.  We 
may  waive  the  fact  that  he  never  wrote  a  great 
play.  No  more  did  Browning  or  Tennyson. 
But  Arnold  cannot  lay  claim  even  to  the  dra- 
matic qualities  which  Browning  and  Tennyson 
possessed.  We  have  seen  that  he  could  not 
tell  a  satisfactory  story,  but  it  is  even  plainer 
that  he  could  not  create  a  character.  As  we 
review  Arnold's  work  we  realize,  with  a  little 
touch  of  surprise,  the  almost  entire  absence 
from  it  of  men  and  women.  The  unreality 
of  Sohrab  and  of  Rustum  has  been  already 
pointed  out;  the  gods  in  Balder  are  even  more 
remote  and  lifeless;  Obermann  is  a  ghost,  the 
Scholar-Gipsy  a  myth,  even  the  poet's  nearest 
friend  becomes  the  conventional  dead  shepherd 
of  pastoral  elegy.  And  the  women!  Mar- 
guerite is  a  dainty  lady  who  allows  herself  to 
be  kissed  and  abandoned,  neither  with  ex- 
treme concern;  Fausta  and  Eugenia  are  mere 
nomina  umbrae.  The  truth  is  that  Arnold  is 
one  of  the  least  objective  of  English  poets. 

[37] 


424390 


Studies  oj  a  BooJdover 

Byron's  lack  of  objectivity  is  a  commonplace 
of  criticism;  but  Byron  had,  at  least,  the  gift  of 
projecting  his  own  great  personality  into  the 
figures  of  his  poems.  Harold,  Manfred,  and 
Juan  are,  it  may  be,  mere  embodiments  of 
various  aspects  of  their  creator,  but  they  share 
something  of  his  fiery  life,  and  so  long  as  the 
personality  of  Byron  thrills  and  fascinates,  so 
long  will  these  characters  endure  —  and  that 
will  be  as  long  as  English  poetry  is  read.  But 
is  there  any  character  of  Arnold's  poetry  which 
can  be  identified  with  Arnold  ? 

On  the  technical  side  of  poetry  there  are  few 
faults  to  be  found  with  Arnold's  work,  yet  even 
here  the  adversary  may  advance  something 
against  him.  He  lacked  almost  entirely  the 
richness  of  color,  the  delight  in  lovely  words 
for  their  own  sake  and  for  the  sake  of  their 
associations,  which  makes  so  many  lines  of 
Tennyson  a  wonder  and  a  wild  delight.  He 
lacked  almost  entirely  the  sense  of  that "  natural 
magic,"  to  use  his  own  fine  phrase,  by  which 

[38] 


The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold 

at  times  Shakespeare  seems  to  transport  us  in 
the  twinkling  of  an  eye  to  fairyland.  Worst 
of  all,  he  often  lacked  a  true  ear  for  rhyme  and 
rhythm.  This  led  him  to  perpetrate  such 
assonances  as  "ranging"  and  "hanging,"  as 
"  scorn  "  and  "  faun  " ;  at  times  to  write,  under 
the  delusion  that  it  was  metrical,  such  a  pas- 
sage as  the  following,  which,  printed  as  prose, 

reads : 

"  Thou  standest  smiling  down  on  me ! 
Thy  right  arm,  leaned  up  against  the  col- 
umn there,  props  thy  soft  cheek;  thy  left 
holds,  hanging  loosely,  the  deep  cup,  ivy- 
cinctured,  I  held  but  now." 

It  would  be  an  interesting  and  not  unin- 
structive  exercise  for  the  student  of  poetry  to 
attempt  the  scansion  of  these  lines,  or  even 
their  arrangement  in  metrical  form.  Arnold 
never  outgrew  this  dulness  and  uncertainty  of 
ear.  Some  of  his  most  prosaic  and  unrhyth- 
mical passages  occur  in  his  last  volume  of 
verse. 

And  now,  having  cleared  the  field,  we  may 

[39] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

proceed  to  the  more  pleasing  and  gracious 
task  of  defining  what  Arnold  was,  and  of 
pointing  out  his  peculiar  poetic  characteristics. 
He  was,  undoubtedly,  a  great  didactic  and 
critical,  a  great  elegiac  and  lyric  poet.  Didac- 
tic, not  in  the  old-fashioned  sense  of  Pope  and 
Johnson,  nor  even  in  the  often  too  obtrusive 
fashion  of  Wordsworth.  But  he  had  a  dis- 
tinct philosophy  of  life,  and  this  philosophy 
interpenetrates  and  informs  his  poetry.  It 
does  not  harm  it.  Arnold,  in  poetry  at  least, 
was  not  one  of  those  preachers  who  are  for- 
ever dragging  in  the  moral.  He  lived  in  the 
world  of  ideas,  as  some  poets,  Mr.  Kipling,  for 
example,  live  in  the  world  of  actions.  The 
desire  to  impart  ideas  roused  him  to  a  point 
as  near  that  of  passionate  poetic  sympathy  as 
he  ever  approached.  And,  accordingly,  some 
of  his  very  best  poetry  appears  in  these  efforts 
to  communicate  ideas  which  to  him  were  vital 
and  salutary  truths.  We  need  only  turn  to  the 
later  sonnets,  to  Resignation,  A  Summer  Night, 

[40] 


The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold 

and  the  Stanzas  pom  the  Grande  Chartreuse 
to  realize  the  truth  of  this  statement. 

Arnold  is,  perhaps,  the  greatest  of  our  criti- 
cal poets.  He  once  defined  poetry  as  being 
essentially  a  criticism  of  life.  If  poetry  were 
this  and  this  alone,  Arnold  would  be  the 
greatest  of  English  poets.  Poetry,  of  course, 
is  infinitely  more  than  this,  even  if  we  give 
to  the  definition  of  criticism  Arnold's  wide 
extension  of  meaning.  But  whether  we  take 
criticism  in  this  larger  sense  as  a  study  of  life 
with  the  purpose  of  distinguishing  between 
the  false  and  the  true,  or  in  the  customary 
narrower  sense,  as  the  effort  to  ascertain  the 
predominating  ideas  and  salient  character- 
istics of  a  writer,  Arnold's  critical  poetry 
stands,  I  think,  unrivaled.  For  a  criticism 
of  life,  for  a  criticism  of  literature,  couched 
in  grave,  yet  lovely  and  harmonious  verse, 
such  as  abounds  in  the  monologues  of  Em- 
pedocles,  in  the  memorial  verses  for  Words- 

[41] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

worth,  and  in  the  Obermann  poems,  we  may 
go  far  afield  before  we  find  his  fitting  mate. 

Arnold's  elegies  alone  would  assign  him  a 
place  among  the  greater  Victorian  poets.  One 
critic,  indeed,  has  gone  so  far  as  to  call  him 
the  greatest  elegiac  poet  in  English  literature. 
This  seems  a  bold  saying,  for  surely  Arnold 
has  never  reached  such  heights  as  Milton  in 
Lycidas,  Shelley  in  Adonais,  and  Tennyson  in 
In  Memoriam.  But  quantity  counts  for  some- 
thing also  in  determining  a  poet's  work,  pro- 
vided always  that  it  is  quantity  which  does 
not  fall  below  a  certain  mark  of  excellence. 
And  no  other  English  poet  has  given  us  so 
many  grave  and  tender  elegies  as  the  author 
of  Thyrsis,  the  Memorial  Verses,  A  Southern 
Night,  Rugby  Chapel,  Heine's  Grave,  the 
Stanzas  from  the  Grande  Chartreuse,  and  the 
two  poems  in  memory  of  the  author  of  Ober- 
mann. The  mere  roll-call  of  these  titles  is 
enough  to  confirm  those  who  know  their 
Arnold  in  the  belief  that  he  ranks  among  the 

[42] 


The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold 

very  first  of  the  English  poets  of  sorrow  and 
melancholy  meditation.  He  was,  indeed,  well 
fitted  by  nature  to  be  an  elegiac  poet.  A 
famous  phrase  in  Resignation  speaks  of  the 
poet's  "sad  lucidity  of  soul."  This  quality 
was  eminently  characteristic  of  Arnold  him- 
self, and  it  distinguishes  and  elevates  all  his 
elegies.  Sad  an  elegy  must  be  by  its  very 
nature;  but  it  must  also  be  lucid.  Wild  and 
wandering  cries,  however  poignant  and  pathetic 
they  may  be,  are  out  of  place  in  this  form  of 
poetry.  Unless  a  poet  can  so  far  master  his 
sorrow  as  to  look  through  it  and  above  it,  he 
will  prove  as  incapable  of  embodying  it  in  the 
somewhat  conventional  forms  of  the  elegy,  as 
he  will  prove  incapable  of  filling  these  forms 
with  true  and  sympathetic  poetry  if  his  sorrow 
be  not  genuine  and  deeply  felt.  From  this  point 
of  view,  indeed,  it  might  be  maintained,  and  not 
altogether  without  reason,  that  Thyrsis  is  the 
most  perfect  elegy  in  English.  And  when  to 
this  trait  of  sad  lucidity  we  add  the  beauty  of 

[43] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

the  diction,  imbued,  as  it  is,  with  a  richness 
of  color  very  rare  in  Arnold's  work,  and  the 
melodious  rhythm  of  the  echoing  lines,  the 
reasons  for  such  a  preference  seem  weighty 
indeed.  But  the  ranking  of  poets  or  poems 
is  a  dangerous,  and,  indeed,  uncritical  per- 
formance. It  is  enough  to  point  out  what  a 
poet  has  done  without  attempting  to  place 
him  above  or  below  his  fellows.  And  of  the 
beauty  and  poetic  worth  of  Arnold's  elegies 
there  can  be  no  doubt  in  the  mind  of  any 
student  of  English  poetry. 

It  is  another  matter  with  his  lyrical  poems. 
Arnold  is  not,  as  a  rule,  reckoned  one  of  the 
great  singers  of  our  language.  Yet  I  believe 
the  time  will  come  when  critics  will  not  only 
recognize  in  Arnold's  lyrics  the  loveliest 
flowers  in  his  garden  of  verse,  but  will  pro- 
nounce any  anthology  of  English  lyrics  in- 
complete which  does  not  contain  more  than 
one  or  two  of  these  priceless  blossoms  of  pure 
poetry.     Listen  for  a  moment  to  the  lyrical 

[44] 


The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold 

cry  that  rings  through  Requiescat,  Dover 
Beach,  In  Utrumque  Paratus,  the  songs  of 
CalUcIes,  and  consider  whether  we  have  not 
here  a  note  as  rare  as  it  is  beautiful.  Tenny- 
son alone,  it  seems  to  me,  among  Victorian 
poets,  can  equal  these  effects,  and  even  Tenny- 
son lacks  at  times  the  purity,  the  simplicity, 
and  the  directness  which  characterize  the  best 
of  Arnold's  lyrics.  Browning  has  many  pas- 
sages and  some  whole  poems  instinct  with  true 
lyrical  feeling,  but  as  a  rule  Browning  is  not 
subjective  enough  in  mood  or  simple  enough 
in  expression  to  be  a  great  lyric  poet.  On  the 
other  hand,  Arnold's  profound  subjectivity,  his 
intense  sensibility  of  his  own  moods,  and  his 
power  of  rendering  them  in  language  so 
free  from  taint  or  flaw  that  it  seems  the  direct 
utterance  of  the  soul,  were  natural  qualifica- 
tions for  a  place  among  the  master  lyrists  of 
our  language  higher  than  has  yet  been  awarded 
to  him  —  perhaps  higher  than  he  ever  in 
reality  attained. 

[45] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

One  or  two  characteristics  are  yet  to  be 
noticed.  It  is  impossible  to  do  justice  to 
Arnold  without  taking  into  account  the  uni- 
form excellence  of  his  work.  How  much  is 
there  in  some  of  our  greatest  poets,  Words- 
worth, for  instance,  and  Browning,  that  might, 
with  no  loss  to  their  fame,  be  omitted  alto- 
gether from  a  consideration  of  their  work? 
But  if  we  set  aside  the  unfortunate  Merope, 
and  one  or  two  shorter  poems,  what  is  there 
in  Arnold  that  can  be  omitted  without  grave 
loss  ?  One  can  understand  a  meaning  be- 
neath Arnold's  laughing  answer,  when  asked 
to  make  a  selection  from  his  poems,  "  I  would 
like  to  choose  them  all." 

Closely  connected  with  this  characteristic 
is  the  uniform  excellence  of  the  single  poems. 
Sometimes,  but  rarely,  we  find  purple  patches 
upon  a  mantle  of  hodden-gray;  but,  as  a  rule, 
each  poem  maintains  throughout  an  even  ex- 
cellence of  style.  And  at  its  highest  how  pure 
and  noble  is  this  style  of  Arnold's!     He  said 

[46] 


The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold 

of  Wordsworth's  style  that,  at  his  best,  Nature 
seemed  to  take  the  pen  and  write  for  him. 
No  higher  praise  could  be  given  to  any  poet, 
and  no  truer  praise  to  much  of  Arnold's  own 
poetry.  Doubtless  this  instinct  for  chastely 
finished  work,  which  preserved  him  alike  from 
the  too  frequent  redundancies  of  Tennyson, 
and  the  too  startling  eccentricities  of  Brown- 
ing, was  due  to  the  influence  of  his  classical 
studies;  but  there  has  been  more  than  one 
classically  educated  poet  who  has  been  notably 
deficient  in  this  instinct. 

One  specially  characteristic  feature  of 
Arnold's  poetry  is  his  treatment  of  nature. 
Since  Cowper's  day,  all  great  English  poets 
have  been  nature  lovers.  Even  Browning, 
whose  stress  lay  upon  the  incidents  in  the 
development  of  man's  soul,  illumines  his 
dramatic  poetry  with  sudden  pictures  of  the 
external  world  that  show  him  to  have  been  a 
penetrating  observer  and  a  passionate  lover 
of  nature.     The  poetry  of  Tennyson,  the  great 

[47] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

master  of  the  idyllic  school,  is  bathed  in  a 
sensuous  enjoyment  of  nature  in  all  her  as- 
pects. In  Arnold,  too,  there  is  this  ever- 
present  love  of  nature,  but  with  a  difference. 
He  does  not,  like  Browning,  turn  to  nature 
to  illustrate  the  life  of  man,  nor  does  he,  like 
Tennyson,  steep  his  senses  in  nature  for  sheer 
delight  in  her  visible  beauty.  His  relation 
to  the  natural  world  is  like  that  of  Words- 
worth, a  moral  relation.  But  here,  again,  we 
must  distinguish.  Wordsworth  sought  in  na- 
ture the  inspiration  without  which  man's  life 
was  stale,  flat,  unprofitable.  To  him  the 
universe  was  governed  by  laws,  not  only 
mighty,  but  everlastingly  righteous.  The  man 
who  could  penetrate  through  the  superficial 
aspects  of  the  visible  world  to  grasp  these  laws, 
and  who,  having  grasped  them,  could  shape 
his  own  life  in  accordance  with  them,  had 
learned,  in  Wordsworth's  judgment,  the  secret 
of  life.  Arnold,  on  the  other  hand,  draws  a 
sharp   distinction    between    man    and    nature. 

[48] 


The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold 

At  times,  even,  as  in  the  sonnet.  In  Harmony 
with  Nature,  he  contrasts  the  two  as  opposing 
and  almost  hostile  forces; 

"Nature  is  cruel,  man  is  sick  of  blood; 
Nature  is  stubborn,  man  would  fain  adore." 

This,  to  be  sure,  is  an  unusual  view  with 
Arnold.  But  it  is  only  an  exaggeration  of  his 
constantly  maintained  distinction  between  the 
world  of  natural  phenomena  and  the  world  of 
man's  life  and  thought.  In  one  of  his  most 
thoughtful  poems.  Morality,  he  represents 
nature  as  admiring  and  applauding  "  the  divine 
strife,"  "  the  severe  earnest  air,"  of  man.  As  a 
rule,  however,  he  conceives  of  nature  as  apart 
from  and  indifferent  to  man : 

"  The  world  which  was  ere  I  was  born. 
The  world  which  lasts  when  I  am  dead; 

Which  never  was  the  friend  of  one. 
Nor  promised  love  it  could  not  give, 
But  lit  for  all  its  generous  sun, 
And  lived  itself,  and  made  us  live." 

Yet  Arnold  is  not  indifferent  to  nature  be- 

[49] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

cause  nature  is  indifferent  to  him.  On  the 
contrary  he  finds  in  the  contemplation  of  na- 
ture the  attainment,  temporary  to  be  sure,  but 
still  the  attainment,  of  what  with  all  his  soul 
he  most  desires  —  calm.  And  hence  it  comes 
that  he  turns  again  and  again  to  the  more 
tranquil  and  soothing  aspects  of  the  world 
about  him,  to  the  peaceful  beauty  of  the  Eng- 
lish country-side,  to  the  quiet  flow  of  a  great 
river  towards  its  final  home,  and,  most  of  all,  to 

"The  night  in  her  silence. 
The  stars  in  their  calm." 

It  has  been  said  that  Arnold  regarded  na- 
ture as  a  sedative,  an  anodyne.  Such  a  state- 
ment is  one  of  the  half-truths  of  criticism 
which,  while  not  without  a  basis  of  fact,  are 
responsible  in  the  end  for  a  wholly  wrong  im- 
pression. It  is  true  that  Arnold  turns  with  a 
profound  sense  of  relief  from  the  weariness, 
the  fever,  and  the  fret  of  human  life  to  the 
calm,  untroubled  world  of  nature.  But  he 
by  no  means  used  nature  as  a  drug  to  deaden 

[50] 


The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold 

his  senses.  The  contemplation  of  nature  was 
to  him  rather  a  bath  that  at  once  cleansed 
him  from  the  dust  and  stains  of  conflict,  and 
sent  him  out  refreshed  and  strengthened  to 
face  the  world  again.  It  is  worth  recalling 
the  fact  that  Arnold  was  a  hard-working  man. 
By  far  the  greater  part  of  his  poetry  was  com- 
posed during  the  twenty  years  that  he  served 
as  an  inspector  of  English  schools,  hurrying 
from  town  to  town,  for  long  years  without  a 
resting-place  that  he  could  call  his  home,  con- 
stantly engaged  in  the  mind  and  soul  destroy- 
ing task  of  reading  examination  papers,  and 
fighting,  like  Paul  at  Ephesus,  against  the  wild 
beasts  of  British  ignorance,  obstinacy,  and 
Philistinism.  It  is  no  wonder  that  he  turned 
from  such  a  battle  to  seek  the  consolations  of 
nature.  The  wonderful  and  laudable  thing  is 
that  he  always  went  back  to  the  battle  again. 
And  this  brings  us  to  the  last  and  noblest 
characteristic  of  Arnold's  poetry;  its  essentially 
manly  tone  and  temper.     Arnold  has  not  the 

[51] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

strong  and  happy  optimism  of  Browning  nor 
the  emotional  hopefulness  of  Tennyson.  More 
a  child  of  his  age  than  either  of  his  great 
contemporaries,  he  reflected,  as  neither  of 
them  did,  the  prevailing  spirit  of  his  time.  It 
is  for  this  that  superficial  critics  call  him  a  poet 
of  doubt  and  despair.  Of  doubt  he  is,  in  a 
sense,  a  poet,  inasmuch  as  he  gives  utterance 
to  the  thought  of  his  age,  but  never  of  despair. 
The  vigorous  teachers  of  his  youth  —  Goethe, 
Wordsworth,  his  own  father  —  forbade  such 
mental  cowardice.  And  Arnold  was  at  heart 
a  deeply  religious  nature,  not  a  mystic,  not  an 
enthusiast,  but  one  whose  religion  was  em- 
braced in  the  word,  conduct.  If  he  laid  aside 
much  of  the  armor  of  faith  worn  by  his  an- 
cestors, it  was  only  to  fight  more  freely  in  the 
lighter  gear. 

' '  Hath  man  no  second  life  ? — Pitch  this  one  high  ! 
Sits  there  no  judge  in  Heaven,  our  sin  to  see  ? — 
More  strictly,  then,  the  inward  judge  obey! 
Was  Christ  a  man  like  us?     Ah!  let  us  try 
If  we  then,  too,  can  be  such  men  as  he !  " 

[52] 


The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold 

On  the  whole,  and  in  spite  of  occasional 
traces  of  weakness,  the  dominant  note  of 
Arnold's  poetry  is  one  of  steadfast,  almost 
stoical,  endurance  of  present  evils,  not  with- 
out gleams  of  hope  in  a  future  deliverance, 

"Still  nursing  the  unconquerable  hope. 
Still  clutching  the  inviolable  shade." 

Like  Tennyson  he  trusted  that  somehow 
good  would  be  the  final  goal  of  ill.  But  unlike 
Tennyson  he  was  not  content  to  rest  in  a 
vague  "somehow."  The  goal,  he  held,  must 
be  attained  by  man's  own  conscious  effort;  and 
to  Arnold's  mind  the  task,  though  attended  by 
disheartening  difiiculties,  was  not  impossible. 
In  lines  which  may  be  regarded  as  closing  his 
poetic  career,  he  represents  the  typical  figure 
of  an  age  of  doubt  and  despair  as  prophesying 
the  coming  of  a  new  and  better  day: 

"What  though  there  still  need  effort,  strife? 
Though  much  be  still  unwon  ? 
Yet  warm  it  mounts,  the  hour  of  life! 
Death's  frozen  hour  is  done ! 

[53] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

The  world's  great  order  dawns  in  sheen, 
After  long  darkness  rude, 
Divinelier  imaged,  clearer  seen. 
With  happier  zeal  pursued." 

Arnold  himself  found  salvation  in  a  gospel 
of  morality  touched  by  the  emotion  of  poetry, 
and  he  looked  forward  to  a  time  when  all  the 
world  would  listen  to  this  gospel  and  find  in  it 

"One  common  wave  of  thought  and  joy 
Lifting  mankind  again." 

That  his  creed  seems  heterodox  to  many,  per- 
haps to  most,  in  our  day  as  in  his  own,  does 
not  alter  the  fact  that  he  believed  in  it  as  a 
means  of  escape  from  the  deadening  influences 
of  the  world,  and  that  so  beheving  he  sorrowed 
not  as  one  that  has  no  hope.  It  is  not  what  he 
believed,  but  the  fact  that  he  believed,  which 
constitutes  the  moral  and  spiritual  value  of 
Arnold's  work. 

Enough  has  been  said  to  justify  Matthew 
Arnold's  claim  to  a  place  among  the  greater 
Victorian  poets  —  if  hardly  the  equal  of  Tenny- 

[54] 


The  Poetry  of  Mattheiv  Arnold 

son  or  Browning,  yet  in  the  same  class  with 
them.  Indeed  it  seems  by  no  means  improb- 
able that  a  poet  of  such  grace  and  purity,  of 
such  high  artistic  ideals  and  achievements,  of 
such  moral  dignity  and  manly  fortitude,  will 
come  to  be  recognized  more  and  more  clearly 
with  the  years  that  make  impartial  judgment 
possible  as  one  of  the  great  masters  in  the 
broad  and  lovely  realm  of  English  poetry, 


[55] 


Old  Edinburgh 
and  Her  Poet-Laureate 

IN  the  early  decades  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury the  prosperity  of  Edinburgh  was  a 
thing  of  the  past  and  her  total  ruin  seemed  a 
thing  of  the  near  future.  The  Union  of  the 
Crowns  in  1707  by  abolishing  the  Parliament 
of  the  northern  kingdom  had  swept  fashion 
and  trade  from  the  wynds  and  closes  of  her 
ancient  capital  into  the  whirlpool  of  London, 
and  in  so  doing  had  struck  an  apparently 
mortal  blow  at  the  welfare  of  the  good  town. 
Scotch  poets  and  politicians  alike  were  loud 
in  lament  over  the  desolation  which  had  fallen 
upon  her  ancient  glories.  "There  is  the  end 
of  an  auld  sang, "  cried  Lord  Chancellor  Sea- 
field,  when  the  act  of  Union  was  signed;  and 
ten  years   afterward  Allan   Ramsay  apostro- 

[56] 


Old  Edinburgk  and  Her  Poet- Laureate 

phized  the  once  fashionable  but  then  deserted 
quarter  of  the  Canongate, 

"  London  and  death  gar  thee  look  droll. 
And  hing  thy  head." 

For  nearly  half  a  century  the  cloud  of  pov- 
erty and  abandonment  hung  heavily  over  the 
town.  There  was  no  commerce,  and  little 
trade.  The  nobles  and  gentry  who  had  been 
wont  to  spend  their  holidays  and  guineas  in 
Edinburgh  flourished  in  London  or  pined  at 
their  country  seats  according  as  their  poUtics 
were  Whig  or  Tory.  The  University  was 
housed  in  a  group  of  shabby  buildings  where 
a  handful  of  students  gathered  to  hear  a  set 
of  "useless,  needless,  headless  and  defective" 
professors  prelecting  on  pseudo-science  and 
mediaeval  metaphysics.  Alone  of  Scottish  in- 
stitutions there  remained  unbroken  the  fierce 
and  intolerant  national  church,  which,  no 
longer  finding  a  counterpoise  in  the  power  of 
Parliament,  exercised  a  rigorous  and  unchal- 
lenged domination  over  the  minds  and  man- 

[57] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

ners  of  men.  Its  seizers  and  compurgators 
arrested  the  godless  who  appeared  upon  the 
streets  "during  sermons"  on  the  Sabbath. 
Its  obedient  magistrates  closed  the  doors  of 
Allan  Ramsey's  little  theatre  and  pried  into 
his  bookshop  in  search  of  "  villainous,  profane, 
and  obscene  books  and  plays."  Not  even 
the  privacies  of  family  life  were  hidden  from 
the  ever  watchful  eye  of  the  kirk-session. 

From  the  strict  inquisition  of  the  church 
"non-professors"  fled  to  the  club  for  refuge, 
and  the  very  names  of  some  of  the  more  noted 
clubs  in  Edinburgh  were  ominous  of  rebellion 
against  the  rule  of  the  saints.  The  Sulphur 
Club,  the  Hell-Fire  Club,  and  Pandemonium 
rang  with  the  lampoons  on  the  clergy,  the 
loose  stories,  and  the  ribald  songs  that  marked 
the  reaction  in  Scottish  society  against  the 
severity  of  church  discipline.  Between  the 
crushing  tyranny  of  the  kirk  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  reckless  license  of  the  ungodly  on  the 
other,  Edinburgh  in  the  first  half  of  the  eigh- 

[58] 


Old  Edinburgh  and  Her  Poet-Laureate 

teenth  century  must  have  been  as  unpleasant 
a  place  of  residence  as  ever  thirty  thousand 
souls  were  gathered  in. 

Between  the  years  1750  and  1760,  however, 
affairs  began  to  mend.  The  country  at  large 
was  rapidly  growing  rich  and  prosperous. 
Improved  methods  of  agriculture  had  redeemed 
many  a  barren  heath  and  doubled  the  pro- 
ductivity of  arable  land.  Rents  rose  in  the 
most  amazing  fashion;  and  for  the  first  time 
in  the  history  of  Scotland  began  to  be  paid  in 
money  instead  of  in  kind.  The  laird  who 
had  formerly  received  an  over-supply  of  skinny 
fowls,  half-starved  sheep,  and  wretched  oats 
and  barley,  now  found  himself  in  possession 
of  an  income  sufiicient  to  raise  the  ancestral 
mortgage,  educate  his  sons,  and  marry  off 
his  daughters.  In  the  West  a  thriving  trade 
with  the  American  colonies  had  sprung  up, 
and  Glasgow  became  a  gate  through  which 
a  golden  stream  poured  into  the  country. 
Employment  was  found  in  England  and  her 

[59] 


Studies  of  a  BooJcIover 

colonies  for  the  canny  Scot  who  served  his 
country  and  feathered  his  own  nest  with  equal 
diligence.  And  what  he  made  abroad  he 
spent  at  home.  Sons  of  peasants  and  crofters 
returned  full-handed  to  buy  the  estates  on 
which  their  ancestors  had  toiled,  and  to  erect 
beside  the  ruined  keep  of  the  old  lord  the 
stately  mansion  house  of  the  new  proprietor. 
With  the  reviving  prosperity  of  the  country 
the  fortunes  of  the  capital  began  again  to 
flourish.  From  all  over  Scotland  the  gentry 
and  nobility  flocked  into  Edinburgh  to  find 
lodgings  permanent  or  temporary  in  some 
narrow  flat  in  the  tall  "  lands  "  of  the  old  town. 
The  deserted  Canongate  became  once  more 
the  center  of  wealth  and  fashion.  In  the  dec- 
ade or  so  between  1759  and  the  opening  of 
the  New  Town  of  Edinburgh  it  was  estimated 
that  two  dukes,  sixteen  earls,  two  dowager 
countesses,  seven  lords,  seven  chief-justices, 
and  thirteen  baronets,  not  to  speak  of  minor 
gentry,  made  their  homes  in  that  now  squalid 

[60] 


Old  Edinhurgh  and  Her  Poet-Laureate 

district.  Once  more  the  narrow  streets  of 
the  gray  metropolis  were  brightened  by  the 
gay  dresses  and  pretty  faces  of  high-born 
ladies  and  rang  far  into  the  night  with  the  songs 
and  laughter  of  noble  beaux  and  macaronis. 

Even  the  iron-bound  kirk  expanded  under 
the  genial  influence  of  the  new  prosperity. 
A  strong  and  gradually  increasing  party  in 
her  councils  sought  to  relax  her  rigorous  dis- 
cipline and  to  mingle  something  of  humanity 
and  culture  with  the  sincere  but  narrow  piety 
of  former  days.  Loud  was  the  lament  of 
evangelical  elders,  crying  out  with  David 
Deans,  "My  bowels  —  my  bowels  —  I  am 
pained  at  the  very  heart,"  over  what  they 
termed  the  "ulcers  and  the  imposthumes  and 
the  sores  and  the  leprosies"  of  the  kirk;  but 
the  new  tendency  was  irresistible,  and  in  spite 
of  lament  and  protest  the  Church  of  Scotland 
became,  for  the  most  part,  what  it  has  since 
continued  to  be,  one  of  the  greatest  civilizing 
and  humanizing  agencies  of  the  country. 

[61] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

A  similar  change  took  place  about  the  same 
time  in  the  world  of  learning  and  letters. 
Robertson,  the  accomplished  leader  of  the 
liberal  party  in  the  church,  was  for  thirty 
years  Principal  of  Edinburgh  University,  and 
his  administration  was  the  most  successful 
that  the  old  university  had  ever  known.  In 
1770  the  number  of  students  was  seven  hun- 
dred, more  than  double  what  it  had  been  at 
the  time  of  the  Union.  The  wretched  build- 
ings, more  fit,  as  Robertson  said,  for  alms- 
houses than  for  a  college,  were  in  part  swept 
away,  the  corner  stone  of  a  new  structure  was 
laid,  and  though  the  work  was  not  completed 
in  Robertson's  lifetime,  it  is  to  his  initiative 
that  Edinburgh  owes  the  stately  edifice  whose 
dome  to-day  rises  high  over  the  steep  incline 
of  the  South  Bridge.  Of  far  greater  impor- 
tance, however,  than  the  increased  number 
of  students  or  the  reconstruction  of  the  build- 
ings was  the  new  spirit  which  Robertson  and 
his  associates  diffused  throughout  the  univer- 

[62] 


Old  Edinburgh  and  Her  Poet-Laureate 

sity.  The  crabbed,  pedantic  temper  of  the 
old  days  gave  place  to  a  polished,  liberal,  and 
broadly  human  culture.  The  skepticism  of 
Hume  was  attacked  and  the  authenticity  of 
Ossian  defended  without  a  trace  of  the  bitter- 
ness which  had  raged  in  the  theological  and 
critical  writings  of  the  preceding  generation. 
From  the  portraits  of  these  old  professors 
there  beams  a  gentle  humor  and  a  kindly 
optimism  admirably  in  keeping  with  their  well- 
brushed  small-clothes,  their  silk  stockings,  and 
their  powdered  wigs. 

No  small  part  of  this  kindliness  and  culture 
was  due  to  the  eminently  social  life  of  the  so- 
called  "  Literati "  of  those  days,  a  body  to  which 
many  of  the  Edinburgh  faculty  belonged.  Its 
oldest  and  most  famous  member  was,  of  course, 
the  great  philosopher  and  historian,  David 
Hume;  its  profoundest  and  most  original 
thinker  was  Adam  Smith.  Hume  lived  in  a 
flat  in  the  Canongate  which  he  boasted  of  as 
singularly    free    from    vermin;    Adam    Smith 

[63] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

spent  the  greater  part  of  his  life  at  the  Httle 
town  of  Kirkcaldy  in  Fife.  But  the  country 
scholar  made  frequent  visits  to  his  brother 
wise  man  in  the  capital,  and  the  suppers  at 
Hume's  lodgings  in  James'  Court  were  true 
coena  deorum.  Hume  was  something  of  an 
epicure;  he  prided  himself  on  his  recipe  for 
soupe  a  la  reine,  on  his  beef  and  cabbage,  on 
his  mutton  and  old  claret.  There  seems  to 
have  been  some  point  in  the  contemporary 
sneer  which  spoke  of  Hume  and  his  friends  as 
the  "Eaterati,"  rather  than  the  "Leeterati," 
as,  in  broadest  Scots,  they  called  themselves. 
Yet  the  great  attraction  of  these  suppers  was 
not  the  food  and  wine,  however  excellent,  but 
the  company  that  Hume  gathered  around  him. 
There  was  John  Home,  author  of  the  porten- 
tous tragedy  of  "Douglas,"  firmly  believed 
by  all  good  Scotchmen  to  outrank  anything 
of  WuUie  Shakespeare's.  There  was  Adam 
Ferguson,  once  the  fighting  chaplain  of  the 
Black  Watch,  now  Professor  of  Moral  Phil- 

[64] 


Old  Edinburgh  and  Her  Poet-Laureate 

osophy  at  the  university.  Boswell  would  be 
there  with  brand-new  stories  of  the  world  of 
London  letters,  and  of  the  great  Cham  who 
ruled  that  world.  Law  was  represented  by 
Lord  Kanes,  cynical,  learned,  and  industrious, 
who  wrote  books  faster  than  his  rival,  Lord 
Monboddo,  could  read  them.  Even  such 
pillars  of  the  church  as  Robertson,  Blair,  and 
Carlyle  of  Inveresk,  did  not  disdain  to  grace 
the  board  of  the  most  dangerous  of  skeptics. 
Hume's  personal  character,  simple,  benevo- 
lent, marked  by  an  almost  childlike  blandness 
of  good  humor,  was  of  a  sort  to  make  even  a 
zealous  churchman  forget  his  essay  on  miracles  ; 
and  Adam  Smith's  verdict  that  his  friend  ap- 
proached "  as  nearly  to  the  idea  of  a  perfectly 
wise  and  virtuous  man  as  perhaps  the  nature 
of  human  frailty  will  permit,"  though  it  seemed 
to  the  jealous  orthodoxy  of  Boswell  a  "  noxious 
weed  in  the  moral  garden,"  merely  echoed  the 
universal  opinion  of  the  philosopher's  inti- 
mates. 

[65] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

All  this  new  wine  of  the  spirit  was  poured 
into  old  bottles,  so  far  at  least  as  the  dwell- 
ing-place and  habitation  of  the  Edinburghians 
went.     For    centuries    the    town    which    had 
grown  up  along  the  steep  and  narrow  ridge 
rising  from   the   Abbey  of   Holyrood   to   the 
still  more  ancient  Castle  had  retained  almost 
the  same  dimensions.     On  the  north,  the  deep 
valley  with  its  loch,  on  the  south,  the  swampy 
grounds,  seemed  to  forbid  any  lateral  expansion. 
But  what  the  city  lacked  in  breadth  it  made 
up    in    height.     Story    upon    story    its    lofty 
houses  soared  up  from  the  gray  rock  toward 
the  gray  sky.     Within  them  were  huddled  all 
sorts  and  conditions  of  men,  members  of  the 
proletariat  in  the  cellar,  noblemen  and  judges 
in  the  intermediate  stories,  with  a  family  or 
two  of  workmen  in  the  garret.     There  were 
no  slums  in  the  old  town  where  the  highest 
and  the  lowest  in  the  land  inhabited  the  same 
building. 

Or  perhaps  it  would  be  better  to  say  that 
[66] 


Old  Edinburgh  and  Her  Poet-Laureate 

the  city  was  one  vast  slum.  For  the  manners 
and  customs  of  its  inhabitants  were  dirty  be- 
yond description.  There  were  no  drains  in 
the  houses,  no  sewers  beneath  the  streets.  At 
ten  o'clock  each  night  the  accumulated  filth 
of  each  flat  was  poured  down  from  the  windows 
upon  the  pavement  to  the  tune  of  a  wild 
chorus  of  "gardy  loo"  (gardez  I'eau).  Its 
varied  stenches,  "the  flowers  of  Edinburgh" 
some  wicked  wit  called  them,  arose  to  heaven; 
and  the  belated  foot-passenger  picking  his  way 
through  the  dimly  lighted  streets  had  a  dangerous 
and  malodorous  journey  homewards.  "  I  smell 
you  in  the  dark, "  muttered  Johnson  as  he 
rolled  along  the  High  Street  towards  Boswell's 
lodgings  on  the  night  of  his  arrival  at  Edin- 
burgh. At  seven  o'clock  each  morning  a 
scanty  train  of  scavengers  appeared  to  clean 
the  streets;  except  on  Sunday,  when  neither 
necessity,  charity,  nor  mercy  were  deemed  to 
demand  their  attendance.  The  common  stairs 
within  the  houses  were  at  least  as  filthy  as  the 

[67] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

streets  without.  The  very  churches  were,  as 
Boswell  testifies,  shamefully  dirty.  When 
Johnson  saw  the  sign  ""Clean  your  feet"  at 
the  door  of  the  Royal  Infirmary,  he  remarked 
to  Boswell,  not  altogether  without  a  chuckle 
of  true  English  superiority,  "There  is  no 
occasion  for  putting  this  at  the  doors  of  your 
churches." 

Within  the  tall  "lands,"  built  so  close  together 
that  the  inhabitants  of  adjoining  houses  could 
often  shake  hands  across  the  deep  but  narrow 
chasm  that  divided  them,  the  inhabitants  hved 
in  the  most  confined  of  quarters.  Four,  five, 
or  at  most  six  rooms  constituted  the  apart- 
ments of  the  wealthiest  families.  Servants 
slept  outside  the  house  or  under  the  kitchen 
table;  cots  were  made  up  for  the  nurse  and 
children  in  the  master's  study,  turned-up  beds 
with  curtains  drawn  around  them  stood  in 
the  drawing  room.  Naturally  the  entertain- 
ing that  could  be  done  in  such  apartments 
was  of  the  smallest.     My  lady  could  receive 

[68] 


Old  Edinburgh  and  Her  Foet-Laureate 

a  few  friends  over  a  cup  of  tea  in  her  bedroom, 
but  when  her  lord  wished  to  dine  or  wine  his 
friends  recourse  was  had  of  mere  necessity  to 
a  tavern. 

Taverns,  in  fact,  played  almost  the  same 
part  in  the  social  life  of  Edinburgh  during  the 
third  quarter  of  the  eighteenth  century  as 
coffee-houses  had  done  in  London  in  Addison's 
time.  They  were  the  common  meeting-places 
of  a  race  of  men  to  whom  home  meant  little 
more  than  a  place  to  sleep.  Doctors  met  their 
patients,  lawyers  consulted  with  their  clients, 
over  a  mug  of  ale  or  a  tass  of  brandy  in  the 
httle  rooms  of  a  dark  tavern  half  underground. 
Here  the  city  magistrates  were  accustomed  to 
meet,  and  here  the  ministers  of  the  General 
Assembly  were  entertained.  Even  trades- 
people attended  to  their  business  as  much 
within  the  tavern  as  within  the  shop.  As  a 
result,  the  greater  part  of  the  male  population 
of  Edinburgh  drank  steadily  from  morn  till 
eve  and  far  on  into  the  night.     At  ten  o'clock 

[69] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

at  night  the  drum  of  the  city  guard  warned  all 
God-fearing  men  to  leave  the  taverns  and  seek 
their  homes,  in  accordance  with  the  provisions 
of  an  ancient  law  which  closed  all  places  of 
entertainment  at  that  hour.  But  the  law  at 
this  time  was  laughed  at  by  the  very  magis- 
trates sworn  to  enforce  it.  Scott's  picture  of 
Councillor  Pleydell  is  but  a  faint  sketch  of  the 
accompUshed  toper  of  the  olden  time.  Even 
to-day  the  capacity  of  a  well-seasoned  Scotch- 
man for  his  native  drink  is  something  to  appal 
the  untried  foreigner;  but  if  we  may  believe  a 
tithe  of  the  stories  collected  by  such  a  creditable 
authority  as  Dean  Ramsay,  the  Scotch  of  to- 
day are  but  poor  and  degenerate  scions  of  a 
heroic  race. 

It  was  in  the  nature  of  things  impossible 
that  the  close  and  confined  life  of  "land,"  flat, 
and  tavern  should  endure.  Population  grew 
denser  and  wealth  increased,  while  new  ideas 
of  comfort  sprang  up  that  were  impossible  of 
realization  under  the  then  prevaiUng  circum- 

[70] 


Old  Edinburgh  and  Her  Poet-Laureate 

stances.  One  by  one,  and  with  a  certain  hesi- 
tation, famihes  crept  out  of  their  gloomy 
wynds  and  narrow  flats  to  find  a  home  in  the 
"self-contained"  houses  built  about  1760  in 
George  Square,  a  few  minutes'  walk  to  the 
south  of  the  Old  Town.  In  the  opposite 
quarter  the  great  North  Bridge  was  built  to 
span  the  valley  that  still  separates  the  Old 
Town  from  the  New.  Plans  were  laid  for 
draining  the  Nor'  Loch  where  the  Princes 
Street  gardens  now  He;  and  httle  by  little 
shops  and  dwelling  houses  began  to  push 
westward  along  what  is  now  the  finest  street 
in  the  British  Isles.  As  early  as  1770  David 
Hume,  who  might  almost  have  been  called  the 
presiding  genius  of  the  pleasant  life  of  the  Old 
Town,  removed  to  a  house  across  the  bridge 
on  the  corner  of  a  little  unnamed  lane  which 
some  wag  baptized  in  his  honor  St.  David's 
Street.  In  a  couple  of  decades  the  movement  was 
accomphshed  and  the  "lands"  of  the  Canon- 
gate  and  High  Street,  once  more  deserted  by 

[71] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

their  noble  and  wealthy  occupants,  were  turned 
over  to  the  tenancy  of  the  lower  classes.  By 
1783  the  Lord  President's  old  lodgings  were 
occupied  by  a  "  rouping  wife  "  who  sold  old  fur- 
niture, a  chairman  left  Lord  Drummore's  former 
apartment  because  he  was  not  sufficiently  ac- 
commodated, and  troops  of  dirty  children 
swarmed  and  littered  on  the  stairs  along  which 
all  the  beauty  and  fashion  of  Edinburgh  had 
passed  two  short  decades  before.  The  glory 
of  the  Old  Town  had  departed,  and  the  social 
life  of  the  New  Town  was  a  new  life  under 
new  conditions.  But  the  old  did  not  pass 
away  without  its  sacer  vates.  Just  at  the  height 
of  the  Old  Town's  prosperity  in  1769,  Robert 
Fergusson  returned  from  a  fruitless  expedi- 
tion to  the  North  to  become  the  laureate  of 
the  city  where  he  had  been  born  and  where  he 
was  so  soon  to  die. 

The  researches  of  Fergusson's  indefatigable 
biographer,  Dr.  Grosart,  have  made  it  pos- 
sible for  us  to  form  some  notion  of  the  poet's 

[72] 


Old  Edinburgh  and  Her  Poet-Laureate 

early  life  and  training.  He  was  born,  it  ap- 
pears, in  1750,  in  a  little  old  house  in  Cap-and- 
Feather  Close,  a  dirty  alley  opening  off  the 
High  Street.  His  father,  a  struggling  clerk 
and  copyist,  accomplished  with  some  measure 
of  success  the  seemingly  impossible  task  of 
feeding,  clothing,  and  educating  four  children 
on  his  meagre  salary  of  £20  a  year.  Robert's 
health  was  from  the  beginning  delicate;  but  he 
managed,  none  the  less,  to  secure  a  first-rate 
education  at  the  Edinburgh  High  School,  the 
Dundee  Grammar  School,  and  the  University 
of  St.  Andrews.  Like  so  many  poor  young 
Scotchmen,  he  was  destined  by  his  parents 
for  the  ministry,  for  which  calling  a  four  years' 
course  at  the  university  was  a  necessary  prepa- 
ration. The  few  anecdotes  that  remain  of 
Fergusson's  college  life,  however,  show  him  a 
youth  of  anything  but  clerical  tendencies.  He 
wrote  verses  in  broad  Scots  satirizing  his  mas- 
ters and  his  companions.  He  was  degraded 
from  the  post  of  precentor  in  the  college  chapel 

[73] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

for  an  irreverent  jest  upon  a  bibulous  fellow- 
student,  and  he  was  at  one  time  actually  dis- 
missed from  the  university,  though,  as  he  was 
recalled  within  four  days,  the  offence  can 
hardly  have  been  a  weighty  one.  On  the  other 
hand,  he  read  Virgil  and  Horace  with  diligence 
and  enjoyment,  spent  a  good  portion  of  his 
frugal  stipend  upon  handsome  editions  of 
Shakespeare,  Milton,  and  Pope,  and  sedulously 
cultivated  the  friendship  of  Professor  Wilkie, 
the  farmer  philosopher,  and  author  of  the 
ponderous  "  Epigoniad."  In  fact,  his  character 
was  well  summed  up  by  the  college  porter  as 
"  a  tricky  callant,  but  a  fine  laddie  for  a'  that." 
A  few  months  before  his  graduation  his 
father's  sudden  death  put  an  end  to  whatever 
thought  he  may  have  had  of  pursuing  his 
studies  for  the  ministry,  and  after  a  vain  at- 
tempt to  secure  some  position  through  the 
favor  of  a  prosperous  uncle  in  Aberdeenshire, 
he  returned  to  seek  his  fortune  in  his  native 
town. 

[74] 


Old  Edinburgh  and  Her  Poet-Laureate 

Soon  after  his  return,  Fergusson  secured  a 
position  as  a  transcriber  of  legal  papers  in 
the  Commissary  Clerk's  office.  The  pay  was 
miserably  low  and  he  eked  it  out  by  copying, 
in  a  fine,  clear  hand,  wills,  decrees  of  divorce, 
and  anything  else  that  came  in  his  way,  at  the 
not  exorbitant  rate  of  a  penny  farthing  a  page. 
To  us,  looking  back  upon  those  times,  the  post 
seems,  perhaps,  one  degree  more  wretched 
than  the  gaugership  of  Burns.  But  dreary 
as  was  the  drudgery  of  endless  transcription, 
it  brought  him  enough  to  support  life  in  those 
good  old  days  of  cheap  living,  and  while  per- 
forming the  duties  of  his  office  with  scrupulous 
punctuality,  he  found  amusement  in  plenty  in 
the  sights  and  sounds  of  his  native  town.  He 
formed  an  acquaintance  with  the  actors  of 
the  Uttle  theater  which  had  succeeded  in  estab- 
lishing itself  in  Edinburgh,  and  a  seat  in  the 
Shakespeare  box  was  reserved  for  him  at  every 
performance.  He  was  passionately  fond  of 
music,  particularly  of  his  native  Scotch  airs. 

[75] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

His  love  of  company  and  good  cheer  soon  in- 
troduced him  to  the  club  life  of  the  taverns. 
He  became  a  frequenter  of  Luckie  Middle- 
mist's,  where  gin  was  sold  for  five  shillings  a 
gallon,  of  Robin  Gibb's  and  Indian  Peter's 
in  the  precincts  of  the  law  courts.  He  knew 
the  shades  of  "Pandemonium,"  where  the 
salamanders,  as  the  members  called  them- 
selves, were  wont  to  swill 

"  The  comforts  of  a  burning  gill." 

In  due  time  his  fame  as  a  poet  and  his  talent 
as  a  singer  introduced  him  to  the  famous  Cape 
Club,  a  body  wliich  hved  in  a  perpetual  high 
jinks  of  the  sort  described  by  Scott  in  Guy 
Mannering.  Every  member  —  and  the  mem- 
bers embraced  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men, 
from  Lancashire,  the  comic  actor,  and  Ra^- 
bum,  the  most  famous  of  Scotch  portrait 
painters,  to  Gavin  Wilson,  the  poeticizing  shoe- 
maker, and  Deacon  Brodie,  the  notorious 
burglar  —  was  dubbed  a  knight  and  received 

[76] 


Old  Edinburgh  and  Her  Poet-Laureate 

a  nickname  founded  upon  some  adventure 
which  had  befallen  him.  Fergusson  received 
the  title  of  Sir  Precentor,  and  took  his,  seat 
among  such  worthy  peers  as  Sir  Hayloft,  Sir 
Beefsteaks,  and  Sir  Old  Wife.  A  song  of  Fer- 
gusson's  written  for  the  Cape  Club,  and  still 
in  manuscript  among  the  Laing  papers  in  the 
Library  of  Edinburgh  University,  celebrates 
the  feasts  of  the  Cape  Knights  upon  Welsh 
rabbit,  Glasgow  herring,  caller  tippeny  and 
porter,  —  cheap  banquets,  certainly,  where  "  six- 
pence would  purchase  a  crown's  worth  of  bliss," 
—  and  inveighs  with  startling  frankness  against 
the  folly  of  the  man  who  would  abandon  these 
revels  for  the  embraces  of  the  strange  woman. 
It  is,  perhaps,  deserving  more  than  a  pass- 
ing notice  that  woman,  strange  or  otherwise, 
played  little  or  no  part  in  Fergusson's  life. 
He  was  distinctly  a  man's  man,  delighting  in 
the  social  life  of  the  clubs  with  their  songs  and 
frolics  and  general  good  fellowship.  The 
Amandas  and  Stellas  of  his  English  poems  are 

[77] 


Studies  of  a  BooMover 

evidently    mere    poetic    conventions    without 
basis  of  reality.     In  his  Scotch  poems,  where 
alone  his  true  character  appears,  a  woman's 
name  is  barely  mentioned  except  with  repro- 
bation.    In   fact,    Fergusson    seems    to   have 
been  as  resolute  an  abstainer  from  female  in- 
tercourse as  his  great  successor.  Bums,  was 
addicted  to  it  in  every  shape,  from  an  intrigue 
with  a  serving  girl  to  a  platonic  correspond- 
ence  with    Clarinda.     Stevenson  has    spoken 
of    Fergusson    as    "a    poor,   drunken,  vicious 
boy."     Drunken  he  was,  no  doubt,  too  often, 
and  drunkenness,  we  are  told  in  a  characteris- 
tic Scotch  phrase,  leads  to  vice,  but  in  Fer- 
gusson's  case  the  second  step  was  never  taken. 
It  was  not  until  some  time  after  his  return 
to    Edinburgh    that    Fergusson    appeared    in 
print  as  a  poet,  and  then  his  dehut  was  of  the 
most  unpromising  sort.     The  three  poems  that 
formed  his  first  contribution  to  the  columns 
of  Ruddiman's  Weekly  were  pastorals  of  the 
dullest  and  most  conventional  type.     Damon, 

[78] 


Old  Edinburgh  and  Her  Poet-Laureate 

Alexis,  and  Corydon  recline  on  the  slopes  of 
the  Pentlands  and  warble  responsively  of 
Aurora,  Cynthia,  and  Sol,  of  the  drooping  olive 
and  the  trembling  zephyr.  It  is  all  very  poor 
stuff,  of  the  pseudo-classic  fashion,  then  prev- 
alent in  England,  without  a  touch  of  the  true 
Scotch  fire  which  glows  through  all  his  poems 
in  the  vernacular.  The  succeeding  poems  of 
this  year  were  all  English  and  all  equally 
worthless.  Nothing  can  be  more  pitiful  than 
the  sentimental  Complaint  on  the  Decay  of 
Friendship,  except  perhaps  the  mock  heroics 
of  A  Saturdaijs  Expedition.  But  with  the  be- 
ginning of  the  next  year  Fergusson  found  his 
true  vein.  The  Daft  Days  which  appeared 
in  January,  1772,  was  written  in  a  famous 
vernacular  stanza  which  had  been  handed 
down  from  the  courtly  poets  of  the  middle 
ages  by  David  Lindesay  and  Allan  Ramsay. 
The  simpHcity,  directness,  and  vividness  of  the 
opening  lines  show  at  once  that  the  poet  has 
emerged  into  the  freedom  of  his  mother  tongue 

[79] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

and  Is  no  longer  painfully  attempting  to  culti- 
vate the  olives  of  the  south  on  the  heather- 
clad  hills  of  his  northern  land.  The  faultless 
mastery  of  a  somewhat  difficult  metre  is  in 
admirable  contrast  to  the  stilted  measures  of 
his  English  verse.  The  lilt  of  the  stanza  sets 
the  foot  tapping  like  the  music  of  the  famous 
reel  it  celebrates. 

"Fiddlers!  your  pins  in  temper  fix, 
And  roset  well  your  fiddle  sticks, 
But  banish  vile  Italian  tricks 

From  out  your  quorum, 

Nor  fortes  wi'  pianos  mix  — 

Gie  's  Tullochgorum." 

Fergusson's  flowering  time  was  brief,  but 
rich.  From  January,  1772,  to  December,  1773, 
a  series  of  poems  both  in  English  and  Scots 
appeared  in  Ruddiman's.  The  latter  were  for 
the  most  part  vivid  pictures  of  Edinburgh  life, 
as  Fergusson  knew  it,  such  as  the  King's 
Birthday,  Caller  Oysters,  and  the  Rising  of  the 
Session.  There  were  a  few  broadly  realistic 
sketches  of  the  life  and  amusements  of  the 

[80] 


Old  Edinburgh  and  Her  Poet- Laureate 

lower  classes,  and,  by  way  of  contrast,  a  group  of 
half -humorous,  half-sentimental  nature  poems,  , 
such  as  the  Ode  to  the  Bee,  the  Ode  to  the 
Gowdspink  (gold-finch),  and  On  Seeing  a  Butter- 
fly in  the  Street.  Perhaps  the  most  striking  of 
all  is  The  Farmer  s  Ingle,  a  charmingly  sym- 
pathetic picture  of  a  peasant's  home,  which, 
in  addition  to  its  own  merits,  has  the  peculiar 
glory  of  having  inspired  the  best  known  and 
best  loved  of  Scottish  poems,  the  Cotter's 
Saturday  Night.  It  is  impossible  to  compare 
the  two  without  seeing  whence  the  later  and 
greater  poet  drew  his  inspiration;  and  Bums 
was  honest  enough  to  acknowledge  his  debt. 
"Rhyme,"  he  said  in  a  letter  to  Dr.  Moore, 
"I  had  given  up;  but  meeting  with  Fergus- 
son's  Scottish  Poems,  I  strung  anew  my  wildly- 
sounding  lyre  with  emulating  vigor." 

On  the  Edinburgh  Literati  Fergusson's  poems 
made  little  or  no  impression.  These  gentlemen 
were  indeed  an  Anglophile  and  rapidly  angliciz- 
ing set.     In  1773  Dr.  Johnson  noted  that  the 

[81] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

conversation  of  the  Scotch  grew  every  day  less 
displeasing  to  an  English  ear.  "The  great, 
the  learned,  the  ambitious,  and  the  vain,"  he 
remarks  (and  it  is  probable  that  few  of  the 
Literati  would  escape  inclusion  under  one  of 
these  heads),  "  all  cultivate  the  English  phrases 
and  the  English  pronunciation."  And  if  this 
were  so  in  daily  intercourse,  still  more  was  it 
the  case  in  the  written  word.  Hume  was  al- 
most childishly  eager  to  avoid  a  lapse  into  the 
vernacular;  and  Dr.  Beattie,  author  of  the  once 
famous  and  now  forgotten  Minstrel,  warned 
his  precocious  son  so  solemnly  against  the  use 
of  "Scottish  words  and  other  improprieties" 
that  after  he  grew  up  "  he  would  never  endure 
to  read  what  was  written  in  any  of  the  vulgar 
dialects  of  Scotland."  It  is  not  uninstruc- 
tive  in  this  matter  to  note  that  Fergusson's 
longest  and  most  ambitious  poem,  Auld  Reekie, 
was  dedicated  to  the  future  biographer  of 
Beattie,  Sir  William  Forbes,  and  was  treated 
by  that  worthy  and  prosy  gentleman  with  the 

[82] 


Old  Edinburgh  and  Her  Poet-Laureate 

silent  scorn  that  an  effusion  so  full  of  "Scot- 
tish words  and  other  improprieties"  deserved. 
But  the  common  people,  not  yet  anglicized 
out  of  their  national  sentiment  and  their 
mother  tongue,  hailed  with  delight  the  advent 
of  a  new  poet  in  the  racy  Doric  of  their  an- 
cestors. A  chorus  of  applause  greeted  Fer- 
gusson  as  the  true  successor  of  Allan  Ramsay 
in  suiting  his  lines  to  the  folk  of  the  hills  and 
braes.  The  circulation  of  the  paper  in  which 
his  poems  appeared  increased  beyond  expec- 
tation, and  the  poems  themselves  were  copied 
and  reprinted  all  over  Scotland.  Toward  the 
close  of  1772  he  felt  justijfied  in  collecting  his 
scattered  verses  into  a  volume.  The  little 
book  contained  barely  a  dozen  of  the  Scotch 
poems  and  was  padded  out  with  a  mass  of 
inane  English  verse,  but  it  met  with  a  sur- 
prising success.  Fergusson  cleared  at  least  £50 
by  it,  a  sum  twice  as  large  as  that  which  ac- 
crued to  Burns  for  his  first  volume  of  verse. 
The  publication  of  this  volume  and  the  en- 

[83] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

suing  golden  harvest  were  the  last  bright  spot 
in  the  poet's  short  career.     Early  in  1774  his 
constitution,   at  no  time  robust,   showed  evi- 
dent  signs  of   giving   way   under   the  double 
strain  of  desk-work  all  day  and  high  jinks  half 
the  night.     There  is  a  silly  story  which  Steven- 
son   seems   to    have    believed   of    Fergusson's 
having  been  frightened  into  madness  by  a  lurid 
discourse  on  Death  and  Hell  pronounced  to 
him  by  a  grim  divine  amid  the  appropriate 
surroundings  of  a  churchyard  and  a  ruined 
abbey.     As  a  matter  of  fact  the  discourse  in 
question  was  delivered  two  years  before  Fer- 
gusson's outbreak  of  insanity.     But  it  is  true, 
and  it  is  by  no  means  surprising,  when  one 
considers  his  early  training  and  the  circum- 
stances   of    his    life,    that    his    madness,    hke 
Cowper's,  took  the  form  of  religious  mania. 
He  threw  all  his  manuscripts   into  the  fire, 
abandoned  his  ofiice  work,   and  refusing  all 
social   invitations,   sat  poring  for  hours  over 
the  Bible.     A  paraphrase  of  Job's  tremendous 

[84] 


Old  Edinburgh  and  Her  Poet-Laureate 

curse  which  he  composed  about  this  time 
shows,  sadly  enough,  the  nature  of  his  scrip- 
-tural  studies.  At  one  time,  indeed,  there 
seemed  hopes  of  his  recovery;  but  an  unfor- 
tunate accident  completed  his  ruin.  Return- 
ing late  at  night  from  a  visit  to  a  friend,  he 
stumbled  on  the  stairs  and  fell  violently  to  the 
bottom.  He  was  picked  up  senseless,  and 
when  consciousness  returned,  his  reason  was 
gone.  He  raved  of  the  work  he  was  destined 
to  accomplish  as  a  minister  of  the  gospel,  and 
grew  so  violent  that  it  took  three  men  to 
hold  him.  It  was  impossible  for  him  to  re- 
main in  the  poor  lodging  house  his  mother 
kept,  and  he  was  accordingly  in  one  of  his 
quiet  and  apparently  lucid  moments  conveyed 
in  a  sedan  chair  under  the  pretense  of  visiting 
a  friend  to  the  Schelles  (cells)  where  pauper 
lunatics  were  confined.  The  yell  which  the 
poor  wretch  set  up  on  discovering  where  he 
had  been  taken  still  rings  in  the  ears  of  those 
who  know  the  story  of  his  brief,  unhappy  life. 

[85] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

Confinement  in  a  public  lunatic  asylum  was, 
in  those  days,  a  species  of  permitted  torture. 
The  happiest  result  that  could  be  wished  was 
a  speedy  death,  and  this  blessing  was  soon 
accorded  to  Fergusson.  His  mother  and  sister 
visited  him  the  night  before  he  died.  He  was 
very  weak  and  broken,  but,  for  the  moment, 
quite  sane.  He  begged  his  sister  to  come 
often  and  sit  with  him  and  complained  of  the 
cold  he  suffered  in  his  fireless  cell.  WTien  the 
keeper  called  the  women  out  at  the  closing 
hour,  the  poor  boy  —  he  was  only  twenty-four 
—  burst  into  tears  and  cries.  "  Do  not  go  yet, 
mother,"  he  wailed,  "  do  not  leave  me,  do  not  go 
yet."  He  died  alone  and  untended  that  night. 
It  would  be,  perhaps,  too  much  to  rank 
Fergusson  among  the  inheritors  of  unfulfilled 
renown  who  rose  to  greet  the  risen  Adonais. 
Making  every  allowance  for  his  brief  life  and 
straitened  circumstances,  it  is  hardly  possible 
to  find  in  his  work  the  promise  of  great  things 
cut  short  by  an  untimely  death.     Much  has 

[86] 


Old  Edinburgh  and  Her  Poet-Laureate 

been  made  of  his  relation  to  Burns,  and  Dr. 
Grosart  has  pointed  out  how  interpenetrating 
was  Fergusson's  influence  upon  his  great  dis- 
ciple. On  the  other  hand,  little  has  been  said 
of  his  indebtedness  to  Ramsay,  from  whom 
he  borrowed  most  of  his  metres  and  many  of 
his  subjects.  Fergusson  stands,  indeed,  as  a 
connecting  link  between  two  greater  poets, 
renewing  the  fading  tradition  of  the  one  and 
preparing  the  way  for  the  glorious  appearance 
of  the  other.  Yet  he  is  not  without  merits  of 
his  own  which  raise  him  above  the  necessity 
of  being  judged  merely  by  the  historic  esti- 
mate. He  possessed  a  real  mastery  of  his 
craft,  a  true  ear  for  the  national  metres  and 
rhymes,  an  amazing  command  of  the  rich 
vernacular,  a  true  feeling  for  nature,  a  sly  and 
pawky  humor,  and  a  notable  gift  of  realistic 
description.  His  gift  for  verse  was,  perhaps, 
hardly  so  much  a  heaven-born  genius  as  an 
earthly  talent,  but  it  was  a  talent,  genuine, 
versatile,  and  well-employed. 

[87] 


Studies  of  a  BooMover 

Fergusson  was  above  all  a  national  poet. 
His  muse  did  not,  to  quote  his  own  picturesque 
phrase,  flee  away  beyond  Parnassus  and  seek 
for  Helicon,  "that  heath'nish  spring,"  but  was 
content  with  Highland  whiskey.  The  Arno 
and  the  Tiber  —  which  to  be  sure  he  never 
saw  —  were  to  him  but  "  lifeless  dowie  pools  " 
compared  with  bonny  Tweed,  or  Forth.  At 
times  his  nationalism  shows  itself  in  amus- 
ing, half -humorous,  half -chauvinistic,  outbursts, 
as  when  he  falls  foul  of  the  professors  of  St. 
Andrews  for  the  "superb  treat"  they  had 
hastened  to  offer  that  slanderer  of  Scotland, 
Samuel  Johnson.  The  bill  of  fare  which  he 
declares  they  were  in  duty  bound  to  set  before 
the  Doctor  reads  like  the  menu  of  some  St. 
Andrews  club  on  a  Burns  anniversary:  a  hag- 
gis, a  singed  sheep's  head,  sheep's  trotters, 
brose,  blood  puddings,  a  girdle  farl  (griddle 
cake),  and  small  ale  in  a  wooden  quegh.  A 
St.  Andrews  dinner  to-day  would,  to  be  sure, 
call   for   stronger   drink  than   small   ale.     At 

[88] 


Old  Edinburgh  and  Her  Poet-Laureate 

times  again  he  re-echoes  in  all  seriousness  the 
complaints  that  Allan  Ramsay  had  uttered 
half  a  century  before  as  to  Scotland's  ruin  at 
the  hands  of  the  "predominant  partner,"  and 
he  has  nothing  but  hard  words  for  the  laird 
turned  politician  who  seeks  his  fortune  at  the 
English  court.  Fergusson's  position  as  a 
national  poet  is  of  course  by  no  means  unique. 
Dunbar,  Ramsay,  Burns,  and  Scott  are  poets 
of  Scotland,  in  a  broader  sense  than  his  most 
devoted  admirers  will  claim  for  Fergusson. 
But  no  Scottish  poet,  whether  greater  or  less 
than  he,  has  been  so  peculiarly  the  poet  of 
Edinburgh  and  Edinburgh  life.  Nor  does  the 
fact  that  so  many  of  his  poems  betray  an  in- 
timate and  loving  familiarity  with  country 
sights  and  sounds  detract  from  his  claim  to  be 
regarded  especially  as  a  city  poet.  Stevenson 
has  told  us  in  his  prettiest  phrases  how  pecul- 
iarly Edinburgh  is  linked  to  the  surrounding 
country.  "Into  no  city  does  the  sight  of  the 
country  enter  so  far  .  .  .  you  catch  a  glimpse 

[89] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

of  the  far-away  trees  on  your  walk;  and  the 
place  is  full  of  theater-tricks  in  the  way  of 
scenery.  You  peep  under  an  arch,  you  de- 
scend steps  that  look  as  if  they  would  lead  you 
in  a  cellar,  you  turn  to  a  back-window  of  a 
grimy  tenement  in  a  lane ;  —  and  behold !  you 
are  face-to-face  with  distant  and  bright  pros- 
pects. You  turn  a  corner,  and  there  is  the 
sun  going  down  into  the  Highland  hills;  you 
look  down  an  alley,  and  see  ships  tacking  for 
the  Baltic."  One  lover,  at  least,  of  the  old 
town  reckons  among  his  dearest  memories  the 
purple  slopes  of  Arthur's  Seat,  most  mountain- 
like of  little  hills,  looming  grandly  before  him 
every  evening  of  a  happy  summer  when  he 
turned  a  certain  corner  in  the  quiet  villa-built 
suburb  where  he  tarried  for  a  season. 

But  Fergusson's  poems  of  nature,  charming 
as  they  are,  would  hardly  have  sufficed  to 
transmit  his  name  to  posterity.  It  is  to  his 
poems  of  town  life  that  the  lover  of  the  past 
turns    and    turns    again    with    undiminished 

[90] 


Old  Edinburgh  and  Her  Poet-Laureate 

pleasure,  to  the  Daft  Days,  and  the  King's 
Birthday,  to  Caller  Oysters,  the  Rising  of  the 
Session,  the  Election,  and  above  all  to  Auld 
Reekie.  As  he  reads  there  rises  before  him  a 
panorama  of  the  old  town  in  the  merry  bustling 
years  which  formed  at  once  the  climax  and  the 
close  of  her  peculiar  prosperity.  We  can  fol- 
low the  life  of    the  town  from  the   moment 

when 

"Morn  with  bonny  purpie  smiles 
Kisses  the  air-cock  of  St.  Giles  " 

to  the  wee  sma'  hours  when  the  last  buck 
staggers  homeward  from  his  revels  in  the  club. 
The  barefoot  servant  lasses  cluster  on  the 
turnpike  stairs,  chattering  and  complaining  of 
their  mistresses'  hard  discipline.  The  shops 
are  opening  and  the  "stair-head  critics" 
gather  in  the  Luckenbooths  to  gossip  over 
neighbors  and  inquire  too  curiously  into  the 
purposes  and  antecedents  of  every  stranger 
who  goes  by.  Geordie  Girdwood,  the  drunken, 
sore-eyed,  withered,  little  sexton  of  Greyfriars 

[91] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

Churchyard  is  howking  up  gentle  bones  in 
that  dismal  burying  ground.  Sandy  Fife,  the 
bellman  of  St.  Giles,  sets  the  gill  bells  ringing, 
and  the  burghers  leave  shop  and  office  for  the 
traditional  meridian.  Lawyers  gather  round 
the  site  of  the  ancient  cross,  pulled  down  some 
twenty  years  before  by  the  over-zealous  magis- 
trates upon  whose  heads  Sir  Walter  was  to  de- 
nounce a  minstrel's  curse.  Or  perhaps  it  is  a 
holiday,  the  King's  Birthday,  Hallow-fair,  or 
the  day  of  the  Leith  races.  On  such  a  day 
the  shops  are  shut  early,  the  clinking  of  the 
"tinker  billies"  in  the  West  Bow  is  hushed, 
and  the  crowd  pours  out  of  doors  to  see  and  be 
seen.  Mons  Meg  roars  a  salute  from  the 
castle  at  noon,  and  the  city  guard,  "  that  black 
banditti,"  muster  for  parade.  The  rabble  of 
the  streets  gather  round  and  assault  them  with 
dirty  water  and  dead  cats,  the  old  soldiers 
repel  attacks  with  pungent  Highland  exple- 
tives, with  fire-locks  and  Lochaber  axes. 
Down  on  the  sands  near  Leith  the  browster 

[92] 


Old  Edinburgh  and  Her  Poet-Laureate 

wives  are  selling  bad  ale  and  worse  whiskey  to 
a  noisy  crowd,  while  the  jockeys  in  red,  yellow, 
and  tartan  liveries  gather  for  the  races.  As 
night  falls  over  the  good  town  the  fun  and 
noise  redouble.  The  feeble  gleam  of  Simon 
Fraser's  oil  lamps  is  heightened  by  flaring 
torches  or  horn  lanterns  in  the  hands  of 
liveried  servants.  Wily  caddies  run  about  the 
streets  and  plunge  into  darksome  alleys  on 
dubious  errands.  Sedan  chairmen,  predeces- 
sors of  our  modern  night-hawks,  stand  waiting 
for  a  chance  to  pick  up  some  drunken  "  birkie." 
The  noisy  ten-hour  drum  calls  the  sober  bur- 
gher home  from  his  club,  but  for  the  wilder 
spirits  the  revel  has  just  begun.  From  the  tall 
"lands"  the  nightly  effusions  splashdown  upon 
the  pavement  and  the  luckless  passengers;  and 
the  "flowers  of  Edinburgh"  spread  their  per- 
fume through  the  narrow  ways.  Here  comes 
a  bruiser  reeling  home  along  the  crown  of  the 
causeway,  pushing  all  he  meets  into  the  dirty 
gutters.     At  his  heels  follow  a  pack  of  admir- 

[93] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

ing  macaronis  applauding  his  exploits,  but 
ready  to  turn  tail  and  run  for  it,  if  he  is  seized 
by  the  city  guard.  And  so  the  night  goes  on 
till  a  pale  gleam  across  the  Forth  proclaims 
another  day.  If  by  chance  that  day  happens 
to  be  the  Sabbath,  what  a  sudden  change  ap- 
pears in  men  and  manners !  Save  for  the  ring- 
ing of  a  hundred  church  bells,  among  which 
that  of  the  Tron  Kirk  earns  a  bad  pre-emi- 
nence by  its  deafening  clamor,  all  the  noises  of 
the  town  are  hushed.  Through  the  unclean 
streets  the  roisterous  citizens  of  last  night  stalk 
with  faces  of  such  portentous  piety  as  if  they 
would  make  each  neighbor  think 

"  They  thirst  for  goodness  as  for  drink." 

Then  as  now  the  whole  population  of  the  town 
poured  out  on  a  pleasant  Sunday  afternoon  to 
snatch  a  breath  of  country  air,  and  one  might 
catch  a  glimpse  of  pretty  faces,  half  hidden 
by  the  tantalizing  "bon  grace,"  making  for 
Comely  Garden,  or  the  park,  to  meet  their  joes. 

[94] 


Old  Edinburgh  and  Her  Poet- Laureate 

The  "dandering  cit"  displays  his  Sunday 
braws  on  Castle  hill  for  "  the  fool  cause  of  be- 
ing seen."  The  poet  himself  seeks  out  the  soli- 
tudes of  Arthur's  Seat,  or  muses  amid  the  ruins 
of  Holyrood  over  the  vanished  glories  of  Scot- 
land. But  we  may  be  sure  that,  if  he  with- 
drew from  the  crowd,  it  was  only  for  a  short 
space,  and  evening  found  him  back  in  Auld 
Reekie  seated  at  the  table  of  the  Cape  Club. 

There  is  no  monument  to  Fergusson  in  his 
native  town  except  the  tombstone  with  the 
somewhat  stilted  inscription  which  the  loving 
heart  of  Robert  Burns  erected  over  his  half- 
forgotten  grave.  Few  acts  of  Burns'  life  in 
Edinburgh  are  so  much  to  his  credit  as  his 
pilgrimage  to  the  dreary  little  churchyard  of 
the  Canongate.  Like  the  impulsive,  generous, 
peasant  poet  he  was,  Burns  threw  himself  on 
his  knees  and  with  hot  tears  in  his  eyes  kissed 
the  sacred  earth  that  covered  the  mouldering 
body  of  his  predecessor  and  master.  And  the 
homage  of  Burns  has  been  supplemented  by 

[95] 


Studies  of  a  BooMover 

that  of  the  latest  poet  of  Auld  Reekie.  "I 
may  tell  you,"  wrote  Stevenson  from  his  South 
Sea  exile,  "I  may  tell  you  (because  your  poet 
is  not  dead)  something  of  how  I  feel.  We  are 
three  Robins  who  have  touched  the  Scots  lyre 
this  last  century.  Well,  one  is  the  world's. 
He  did  it,  he  came  off;  he  is  forever;  but  I, 
and  the  other,  ah !  what  bonds  we  have.  Bom 
in  the  same  city;  both  sickly;  both  vicious; 
both  pestered  —  one  nearly  to  madness  and 
one  to  the  madhouse  —  with  a  damnatory 
creed;  both  seeing  the  stars  and  the  moon,  and 
wearing  shoe-leather  on  the  same  ancient 
stones,  under  the  same  pends;  down  the  same 
closes  where  our  common  ancestors  clashed 
in  their  armour  rusty  or  bright.  .  .  .  He  died 
in  his  acute,  painful  youth  and  left  the  models 
of  the  great  things  that  were  to  come;  and  the 
man  who  came  after  outlived  his  green-sick- 
ness and  faintly  tried  to  parody  his  finished 
work." 

After  all  the  true  monument  of  a  poet  is  not 

[96] 


Old  Edinburgh  and  Her  Poet-Laureate 

a  sculptured  bronze  or  marble,  but  a  green  and 
tender  memory  in  the  hearts  of  men.  And  if 
comparatively  few  to-day  remember  the  "  poor 
white-faced  boy  who  raved  himself  to  death 
in  the  Edinburgh  mad-house,"  yet  those  few 
include  among  their  number  all  who  know 
the  literature  of  the  richest  of  English  dialects 
and  all  who  love  the  most  romantic  of  British 
cities.  Other  poets  have  sung  the  praises  of 
Edinburgh,  but  to  her  laureateship  no  other  poet 
has  so  true  a  claim  as  Robert  Fergusson. 


[97] 


The 
Autobiography  of  Milton 

BEFORE  the  execution  of  Charles  I 
Milton  had  been  known  to  some  few 
of  his  countrymen  as  a  poet,  to  a  larger  circle 
as  a  vigorous,  daring,  and  somewhat  scandalous 
pamphleteer.  On  the  Continent,  with  the 
exception  of  the  Italian  friends  who  still  re- 
membered their  beautiful,  scholarly,  and 
accomplished  guest  of  some  twelve  years  be- 
fore, it  is  probable  that  hardly  a  handful  of 
men  were  acquainted  with  his  name.  In 
less  than  three  years  from  the  king's  death, 
however,  things  had  so  far  changed  that 
Milton  had  become  the  most  famous,  or,  per- 
haps, it  would  be  better  to  say  the  most  no- 
torious. Englishman  alive,  with  the  one  ex- 
ception of  his  great  contemporary  Cromwell. 

[98] 


The  Autobiography  of  Milton 

And  this  change  was  due  not  to  any  resump- 
tion of  his  long-neglected  powers  of  poetry, 
but  solely  to  the  position  which  he  assumed 
in  those  years  as  the  defender  with  the  pen  of 
that  republic  which  the  Puritans  had  estab- 
lished with  the  sword. 

Hardly  was  the  king's  blood  dry  before 
Milton  published  the  first  of  his  republican 
pamphlets:  The  Tenure  of  Kings  and  Magis- 
trates: proving  that  it  is  Lawfull,  and  hath  been 
held  so  through  all  Ages,  for  any,  who  have 
the  Power,  to  call  to  account  a  Tyrant,  or 
wicked  King,  and  after  due  conviction  to  de- 
pose, and  put  him  to  death.  The  thorough- 
going partisanship  of  this  work  was  at  once 
recognized  by  the  new  rulers  of  England,  who 
promptly  conferred  upon  Milton  the  Latin 
Secretaryship  to  the  Council  of  State,  a  posi- 
tion which  brought  him  into  close  connection 
with  the  leaders  of  the  army  and  the  judges 
of  the  late  king.  In  this  position  Milton  be- 
came the  acknowledged  spokesman  of  the  Com- 

[99] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

monwealth.  As  such  he  was  ordered  to  make 
an  attempt  to  check  the  reaction  toward 
monarchy  which  was  showing  itself  in  the  en- 
thusiastic reception  of  Eikon  Basilike,  —  a 
book  purporting  to  proceed  from  the  king 
himself  and  to  contain  the  prayers  and  pious 
meditations  of  his  last  days,  —  by  writing 
something  to  destroy  the  credit  of  that  work. 
It  was  an  ungracious  task,  but  Milton  per- 
formed it.  If  he  did  not  convince  the  people 
—  fifty  editions  of  the  Eikon  were  called  for 
within  the  year  to  one  of  Milton's  Eikono- 
clastes,  the  Image-breaker  —  he  at  least  satis- 
fied his  friends  in  the  Council.  For  Milton's 
next  task,  once  more  at  the  request  of  that 
body,  was  the  defence  of  his  country  in 
the  court  of  European  opinion  against  the 
onslaught  just  delivered  by  Salmasius. 

Salmasius,  a  French  Protestant,  attached 
to  the  Dutch  University  of  Leyden  as  Pro- 
fessor Extraordinary,  was  by  common  consent 
the  most  learned  man  alive.     He  had  been 

[100] 


The  Autobiography  of  Milton 

engaged  by  Charles  II,  then  an  exile  at  the 
Hague,  to  issue  a  manifesto  in  defence  of  the 
late  king,  and  had  performed  his  task  in  a 
pamphlet  of  sonorous  rhetorical  Latin  en- 
titled Defensio  Regia,  in  which  he  proclaimed 
the  divine  right  of  kings,  and  assailed  with 
infinite  objurgation  the  "perfidious,  wicked, 
and  parricidal"  act  of  the  English  who  had 
slain  their  heaven-sent  ruler.  It  was  in  an- 
swer to  this  work  that  Milton  published  in 
the  spring  of  1651  his  famous  Pro  Pofido 
Anglicano  Defensio.  The  long  toil  involved 
in  the  preparation  and  composition  of  this 
work  cost  Milton  his  eyesight.  For  years 
his  vision,  overstrained  by  the  arduous  study 
of  his  youth,  had  been  failing,  and  when  he 
began  his  work  on  the  Defence,  he  was  warned 
by  his  medical  advisers  that  if  he  persisted 
it  would  be  irreparably  lost.  But  he  did  not 
hesitate  for  a  moment.  In  such  a  case  he 
says:  "I  would  not  have  listened  to  the  voice 
of    yEsculapius   himself    in   preference   to   the 

[101] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

suggestions  of  the  heavenly  monitor  within 
my  breast;  my  resolution  was  unshaken, 
though  the  alternative  was  either  the  loss  of 
my  sight  or  the  desertion  of  my  duty.  ,  .  .  I 
resolved,  therefore,  to  make  the  short  inter- 
val of  sight  which  was  left  me  as  beneficial 
as  possible  to  the  common  weal."  About  a 
year  after  the  appearance  of  the  Defence  the 
prediction  of  the  doctors  was  fulfilled  and 
Milton  belonged  to  the  fellowship  of  blind 
Thamyris  and  blind  Mseonides.  Terrible  as 
the  aflfliction  of  blindness  must  have  been  to 
Milton  he  never  regretted  the  sacrifice  that  he 
had  made,  but  consoled  himself  to  the  end 
of  his  life  by  reflecting  that  he  had  lost  his 
eyes 

"In  liberty's  defence,  my  noble  task 
Of  which  all  Europe  talks  from  side  to  side." 

Milton  did  not  flatter  himself  when  he 
represented  all  Europe  as  talking  of  his  book. 
The  sensation  which  it  caused  was,  indeed, 
prodigious.     An    unknown    Englishman    had 

[102] 


The  AutobiographTj  of  Milton 

confronted  the  greatest  scholar  of  the  age,  ex- 
posed his  ignorance  of  history,  ridiculed  his 
minute  and  pedantical  learning,  and,  in  con- 
clusion, overwhelmed  him  with  a  flood  of 
personal  abuse  enriched  with  all  the  lively 
billingsgate  of  classical  latinity.  "I  had  ex- 
pected nothing  of  such  quality  from  an  Eng- 
lishman," writes  a  Dutch  scholar,  rejoicing 
in  the  overthrow  of  the  hitherto  invincible 
Salmasius.  Naturally,  wherever  the  divine 
right  of  kings  to  oppress  their  subjects  was 
maintained  as  an  article  of  belief,  Milton's 
treatise  was  received  with  horror.  It  was 
burnt  by  the  public  hangman  at  Paris  and 
Toulouse;  the  Diet  of  the  Holy  Roman  Em- 
pire ordered  that  all  the  books  of  Miltonius 
should  be  sought  out  and  confiscated.  In 
England,  on  the  other  hand,  the  book  was 
welcomed  with  an  outburst  of  applause.  All 
the  foreign  envoys  and  ambassadors  in  London 
congratulated  Milton  on  his  triumph  over 
the  enemy  of  his  country;  the  Council  of  State 

[103] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

formally  thanked  him  on  behalf  of  the  Com- 
monwealth, and  offered  him  a  handsome  sum 
of  money,  a  gift  which,  it  is  needless  to  say, 
Milton  at  once  refused.  He  was  ready  to 
give  his  eyes  for  his  country,  but  he  would  not 
accept  a  money  payment  for  the  sacrifice. 
Salmasius  himself,  on  the  receipt  of  Milton's 
book,  broke  out  into  a  storm  of  rage.  He 
threatened,  says  a  writer  of  the  time,  straight- 
way to  send  Milton,  and  the  Parliament  with 
him,  to  perdition.  But  advancing  age,  domes- 
tic trouble,  and  possibly  also  a  dread  of  his 
terrible  antagonist,  stayed  his  hand,  and  he 
died  in  the  rutumn  of  1653  with  his  reply  un- 
finished. But  in  the  meantime  another  cham- 
pion, nameless  indeed,  but  possessed  of  no 
mean  power  of  invective,  had  come  to  his  aid. 
This  was  Peter  du  Moulin,  a  clergyman  who 
had  been  expelled  from  his  Yorkshire  parish 
by  the  Puritan  reformers.  Not  daring  to 
publish  his  work  in  England  he  had  sent  it 
over  to  Holland,  where  it  was  received  by  a 

[104] 


The  Autobiogra'phy  of  Milton 

certain  Moir,  or  Morus,  who  equipped  it 
with  some  abusive  prefatory  matter,  saw  it 
through  the  press,  and,  in  consequence,  was 
generally,  in  spite  of  his  protestations,  re- 
garded as  the  real  author.  This  book,  Regii 
Sanguinis  Clamor  ad  Coelum  adversus  Parri- 
cidas  Anglicanos  (The  Cry  of  the  King's 
Blood  to  Heaven  against  the  English  Parri- 
cides), is  from  beginning  to  end  one  wild  tirade 
against  the  principles  and  the  leaders  of 
the  English  Commonwealth.  Cromwell  is 
denounced  as  a  hypocrite  and  said  to  be  as 
like  Mahomet  as  an  egg  is  like  an  egg;  the 
guilt  of  the  Jews  in  the  crucifixion  of  Christ 
is  asserted  to  be  as  nothing  in  comparison 
with  the  wickedness  of  the  English  who  had 
slain  their  king;  and  France  is  besought  to 
take  up  arms  to  avenge  his  shameful  murder. 
But  the  choicest  epithets  of  abuse  are  reserved 
for  Milton.  The  scurrile  author  taunts  him 
with  his  blindness,  with  his  lean,  shrivelled, 
and  bloodless  form.     He  styles  him  a  "  hunger- 

[105] 


Studies  of  a  BooMover 

starved  little  man  of  grammar  willing  to  lend 
his  venal  pen  to  the  defence  of  Parricide." 
Milton  is  a  "bestial  blackguard,"  "a  fiendish 
gallows-bird,"  "a  hideous  hangman."  In 
his  youth  he  was  expelled  from  Cambridge 
for  his  profligacy  and  fled  into  Italy,  where  he 
plunged  into  the  most  disgraceful  \'ice.  On 
his  return  he  wrote  a  book  on  divorce  which 
was  httle  less  than  a  plea  for  license  in  crime; 
when  the  murder  of  the  king  was  being  de- 
bated, he  sprang  forward  and  shoved  the 
waverers  to  the  evil  side,  and  finally  he  had 
filled  the  measure  of  his  iniquities  by  insult- 
ing the  sacred  memory  of  King  Charles.  His 
book  had  been  burnt  by  the  hangman  and  he 
himself  deserved  no  better  fate. 

It  was  nearly  two  years  before  Milton 
answered  this  book.  During  this  time  he  was 
slowly  accustoming  himself  to  the  misery  of 
blindness;  he  had  suffered  the  loss  of  his  wife 
and  his  only  son,  and  he  was  waiting  for  the 
threatened  work  of  Salmasius.     At  last,  how- 

[106] 


The  Autobiography  of  Milton 

ever,  in  May,  1654,  his  answer  appeared 
under  the  title  of  Defensio  Secunda.  It  was, 
of  course,  written  in  Latin  for  European  cir- 
culation, and  this  fact,  combined  with  the 
baldness  of  the  few  translations  that  have 
been  made,  serves  to  keep  it  out  of  the  hands 
of  most  English  readers  of  to-day.  Yet  it  is 
in  many  respects  one  of  the  most  valuable  of 
Milton's  prose  works.  Its  interest  to  us  con- 
sists by  no  means  in  the  savage  attack  which 
he  directs  against  Morus,  his  supposed  an- 
tagonist; not  even  in  the  lofty  tribute  of  praise, 
at  once  hearty  and  independent,  which  he 
bestows  upon  the  leaders  of  his  party,  Fairfax, 
Bradshaw,  and  Cromwell;  but  most  of  all 
in  the  multitude  of  autobiographical  details 
which  the  little  book  contains.  Milton,  as 
every  one  knows,  had  a  well-grounded  re- 
spect for  himself,  and  on  this  occasion  he  was 
,  quicker  than  ever  to  resent  slanders  against 
his  character.  For  these  slanders  were  directed, 
not  against  Milton  the  individual,  but  against 

[107] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

Milton  the  Englishman,  Milton  the  advo- 
cate of  his  country  in  the  court  of  Europe. 
By  a  series  of  lies  his  enemy  had  sought  to 
render  him  infamous  and  so  to  bring  dis- 
credit upon  the  cause  he  represented.  And 
it  is  at  once  in  defence  of  himself  and  of  his 
cause  that  Milton  speaks,  addressing  him- 
self to  "  the  whole  body  of  wise  men,  cities,  and 
nations  on  the  Continent."  There  is,  I 
think,  a  pleasant  human  touch  of  wounded 
vanity  in  the  fact  that  he  begins  with  an  ac- 
count of  his  personal  appearance.  "  I  am 
not  tall,  I  confess,"  he  says,  "yet  rather  of 
middle  height  than  short.  Nor  am  I  puny; 
on  the  contrary,  in  my  youth  I  was  wont  to 
practise  fencing  daily,  and  when  I  wore  my 
sword,  as  I  often  did,  I  thought  myself  a 
match  for  a  far  stronger  man.  To-day  my 
spirit  and  my  strength  is  unchanged,  and  if 
my  eyes  are  otherwise,  yet  they  are  still  clear 
and  bright.  My  complexion  is  so  fresh  that 
I  seem  at  least  ten  years  younger  than  I  am, 

[108] 


The  Autobiography  of  Miltori 

nor  is  there  a  wrinkle  on  my  skin.  So  much 
I  have  been  forced  to  say  of  my  appearance; 
would  that  I  could  as  easily  refute  what  this 
inhuman  adversary  has  said  of  my  blindness." 
Later  on,  after  acknowledging  the  goodness 
of  God  shown  him  even  in  his  blindness,  and 
thanking  his  devoted  friends  for  their  ex- 
traordinary kindness,  Milton  goes  on  to  give 
that  sketch  of  his  life  from  which  all  his  bi- 
ographers have  drawn  so  largely.  It  may  be 
of  interest  to  hear  it  in  his  own  words.  "I 
was  born  in  London,"  he  says,  "  of  an  honour- 
able family;  my  father  was  a  most  upright 
man,  my  mother  a  woman  of  approved  good- 
ness, well  known  for  her  charities  to  the  poor. 
From  a  child  my  father  destined  me  to  the 
study  of  the  humanities,  which  indeed  I  pur- 
sued so  eagerly  that  from  my  twelfth  year  on 
I  seldom  left  my  books  for  my  bed  before 
midnight.  And  this  was,  in  truth,  the  first 
cause  of  my  blindness.  In  addition  to  the 
weakness  of  my  eyes  I  suffered  from  frequent 

[109] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

headaches,  but  none  of  these  things  hindered 
my  pursuit  of  learning.  My  father  had  me 
taught  not  only  in  the  school,  but  under  vari- 
ous masters  at  home,  until  I  was  so  far 
advanced  in  the  study  of  languages  and  phil- 
osophy that  he  sent  me  to  Cambridge,  one 
of  our  two  English  universities.  Here  I 
studied  for  seven  years,  shunning  all  vice  (it 
may  be  remembered  that  Milton's  college 
friends  called  him  the  Lady  of  Christ's)  and 
approved  by  all  good  men  until  I  took  the 
degree  of  M.  A.  cum  laude.  And  then  I  did 
not  run  away  to  Italy,  but  of  my  own  accord 
withdrew  to  my  home,  to  the  deep  regret  of 
my  friends  at  college  by  whom  I  was  not  a 
little  esteemed." 

"At  my  father's  country  house,"  he  con- 
tinues, "whither  he  had  retired  to  spend  his 
old  age,  I  passed  my  time  solely  in  the  perusal 
of  classic  authors,  yet  I  sometimes  visited 
the  city  to  buy  books  or  to  learn  something 
new  in  mathematics  or  music,  which  were  then 

[110] 


The  Autobiography  of  Milton 

my  chief  delight.  Having  spent  five  years  in 
this  manner  I  became  desirous  of  visiting 
foreign  parts,  especially  Italy,  and  obtain- 
ing my  father's  consent  I  set  out,  attended  by 
a  single  servant.  On  my  departure  the 
famous  Henry  Wotton  showed  himself  my 
friend  by  writing  a  letter  full  of  good  wishes 
and  of  advice  most  useful  to  a  traveller." 
This  is  the  famous  letter  in  which  Sir  Henry 
praised  the  "Doric  delicacy"  of  Comus  and 
advised  Milton  to  go  through  Italy,  "  pensieri 
stretti,  viso  sciolto"  "  with  thoughts  close  and 
face  open." 

After  speaking  of  his  noble  and  learned 
acquaintances  at  Paris,  Milton  goes  on  to 
tell  of  his  travels  in  Italy.  "I  stayed  two 
months  at  Florence  where  I  constantly  attended 
the  Academies,  which  a  laudable  custom  of 
that  city  maintains  for  the  promotion  of 
literature  and  social  intercourse."  Here  he 
pauses  for  a  moment  to  recall  the  names  of 
the  Florentine  gentlemen  who  had  welcomed 

[111] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

him  so  kindly  and  praised  his  Latin  poems  so 
enthusiastically  on  his  first  visit;  "the  day 
will  never  come  when  I  shall  lose  the  pleasant 
memory  of  these  men."  "From  Florence  I 
went  to  Siena,  and  thence  to  Rome.  I  spent 
two  months  in  exploring  the  antiquities  of 
that  famous  city  and  was  treated  with  the 
greatest  kindness  by  Lucas  Holsten  and  other 
men  of  learning  and  abihty.  I  went  on  to 
Naples,  and  here,  by  the  good  offices  of  a  hermit 
who  had  been  my  companion  on  the  journey, 
I  was  introduced  to  Manso,  Marquis  of  Villa, 
a  noble  and  venerable  gentleman,  to  whom 
Tasso,  the  famous  poet,  had  dedicated  his 
book  On  Friendship.  So  long  as  I  remained 
in  Naples  this  gentleman  treated  me  as  a  dear 
friend;  he  showed  me  about  the  city,  took  me 
into  the  Viceroy's  palace,  and  even  visited  me 
several  times  at  my  lodgings.  And  when  I 
departed,  he  gravely  excused  himself  for  not 
having  shown  me  more  attention,  which,  he 
said,  my  lack  of  reserve  in  the  matter  of  re- 

[112] 


The  Autobiography  of  Milton 

ligion  had  rendered  impossible  in  such  a  town 
as  Naples.  I  was  preparing  to  visit  Sicily 
and  Greece  when  the  sad  news  of  civil  war 
in  England  recalled  me,  for  I  thought  it  dis- 
graceful to  travel  at  ease  abroad  while  my 
fellow-citizens  were  fighting  for  liberty  at 
home. 

"On  my  way  back  to  Rome  I  was  warned 
that  the  English  Jesuits  were  laying  snares 
for  me  in  case  I  revisited  that  city,  because 
they  thought  I  had  spoken  too  boldly  about 
religion.  For  I  had  made  it  a  rule  never  to 
introduce  the  subject  of  religion  in  that  coun- 
try, but  at  the  same  time  not  to  conceal  my 
own  opinions,  no  matter  what  the  conse- 
quences, in  case  I  were  questioned  as  to  my 
faith.  And  so  I  returned  to  Rome,  where 
for  two  months'  space,  in  the  very  city  of  the 
Pope,  I  openly  defended  the  true  religion,  as 
I  had  done  before,  whenever  it  was  attacked 
in  my  presence.  And  by  God's  grace  I  re- 
turned   unharmed    to    Florence,    where    my 

[113] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

friends  received  me  as  joyfully  as  if  I  had  re- 
turned to  my  fatherland." 

After  a  brief  account  of  his  travels  in 
Northern  Italy,  Milton  speaks  of  his  visit  to 
Geneva  on  the  way  home,  and  the  mention 
of  this  city,  from  which  his  supposed  calum- 
niator, Morus,  had  departed  under  a  cloud 
of  scandal,  leads  him  to  call  God  to  witness 
"that  in  all  those  cities  where  vice  is  so  open 
I  Hved  pure  and  untouched  by  crime  or  sliame, 
perpetually  reflecting  that  though  I  might 
escape  the  eyes  of  men,  I  could  not  that  of 
God."  It  is  an  interesting  coincidence  that 
Milton,  on  being  asked  at  Geneva  for  his 
autograph,  wrote  down  from  memory  two 
Unes  of  Comus, 

"If  virtue  feeble  were 
Heaven  itself  would  stoop  to  her," 

and  added  below  them,  as  an  attestation  of 
his  belief,  "  Caelum,  non  animum,  Tnuto,  dum 
trans  mare  curro" :  "I  change  my  abode,  but 
not  my  opinions,  when  I  cross  the  sea." 

[114] 


The  Autobiography  of  Milton 

"On  my  return  to  England,"  he  continues, 
"  I  rented  a  house  in  London  large  enough  for 
myself  and  my  books,  and  betook  myself  with 
joy  to  my  interrupted  studies."  This  is  the 
time  when  Milton  wrote  his  last  long  Latin 
poem,  the  Epitaphium  Damonis,  in  memory 
of  his  lost  friend,  Diodati,  and  when  he  was 
planning  a  great  epic  in  his  mother  tongue 
on  the  story  of  Arthur,  in  the  hope,  he  says, 
"that  I  might  perhaps  leave  something  so 
written  to  after  times  as  they  should  not 
willingly  let  it  die." 

From  this  "quiet  and  still  air  of  delightful 
studies  "  Milton  was  soon  called  on  to  "  em- 
bark in  a  troubled  sea  of  noises  and  hoarse 
disputes."  He  enumerates  in  the  Defence 
the  various  pamphlets  which  he  had  written, 
first  in  the  controversy  on  church  government 
which  was  then  raging,  and  next  to  promote 
the  cause  of  "that  true  liberty  which  is  to  be 
sought  within,  and  not  without,  the  mind,  not 
in  battle,  but  in  the  right  conduct  of  life."     To 

[115] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

this  end  he  wrote  first  his  pamphlets  on 
divorce,  "for  that  man  makes  a  vain  boast  of 
hberty  in  the  polHng  place  or  senate  house 
who  at  home  endures  a  slavery  most  disgrace- 
ful to  a  man,  slavery  to  an  inferior."  Further, 
he  discussed  briefly  the  education  of  children, 
"than  which  nothing  does  more  to  train  the 
mind  in  virtue,  that  sole  source  of  true  internal 
liberty."  "Also  I  wrote  the  Areopagitica,  on 
the  liberty  of  the  press,  to  prevent  the  censor- 
ship from  remaining  longer  in  the  hands  of  a 
few  badly  educated  men  who  seldom  allowed 
aught  to  appear  that  was  above  the  level  of 
the  vulgar  mind." 

Finally  Milton  brings  the  story  of  his  life 
down  to  the  date  at  which  he  was  writing,  by 
speaking  of  the  controversy  in  which  he  be- 
came engaged  after  the  execution  of  the  king. 
He  denies  that  he  urged  on  the  regicides;  his 
first  book  on  the  subject  did  not  appear  till 
after  the  king's  death  and  was  written  "  rather 
to  compose    the  minds  of   men   than   to    de- 

[116] 


The  Autobiography  of  Milton 

cide  anything  in  the  case  of  Charles,  which 
was  not  my  business,  but  that  of  the  magis- 
trates, and  was,  moreover,  settled  already. 
I  did  my  work  for  church  and  state  within  my 
own  four  walls:  I  received  no  reward  for  it 
except  that  I  was  let  alone.  Other  men  got 
money  or  office  for  nothing;  but  no  one  ever 
saw  me  canvassing  for  an  office,  or  using  the 
influence  of  friends  to  secure  a  favor;  no  one 
ever  saw  me  hanging  about  the  doors  of  the 
House  with  a  beggar's  face  or  spending  my 
time  in  the  ante-chambers  of  committee- 
rooms.  I  stayed  at  home  and  lived  on  my 
own  means.  I  was,  indeed,  at  work  on  a 
History  of  England  when  the  Council  of  State 
most  unexpectedly  demanded  my  assistance 
in  foreign  affairs.  At  the  request  of  the  Coun- 
cil I  wrote  the  Eikonoklast  in  answer  to  the 
Eikon.  I  did  not  insult  the  dead  monarch,  as 
I  am  accused  of  doing,  but  I  verily  thought  that 
Queen  Truth  was  more  to  be  preferred  than 
King  Charles.     Finally,  when  Salmasius  pub- 

[117] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

lished  his  book,  there  was  no  long  dispute  as  to 
who  should  answer  it.  I  was  then  present  in 
the  Council,  and  all  its  members  at  once  and 
with  one  accord  named  me.  So  much,  Morus, 
I  have  written  about  myself  to  stop  your 
mouth  and  to  expose  your  falsehoods." 

I  have  translated  freely,  condensing  and 
omitting  much  from  this  the  longest  auto- 
biographical passage  in  the  works  of  Milton. 
It  is,  however,  only  one  of  many.  There  is, 
for  instance,  a  long  introduction  to  the  second 
book  of  The  Reason  of  Church  Government,  in 
which  Milton  speaks  of  the  causes  that  have 
induced  him  to  lay  aside  the  epic  poem  that 
he  was  meditating  and  take  part  in  the  church 
controversies  of  the  time.  Here  he  praises 
the  "ceaseless  diligence  and  care"  wliich  his 
father  had  lavished  upon  his  education,  and 
mentions  the  fact  that  he  himself  had  been 
from  a  child  destined  to  the  service  of  the 
church:  "till  coming  to  some  maturity  of 
years   and  perceiving  what  tyranny  had  in- 

[118] 


The  Autobiography  of  Milton 

vaded  the  church,  that  he  who  would  take 
orders  must  subscribe  slave,  and  take  an  oath 
withal,  which,  unless  he  took  with  a  con- 
science that  would  retch,  he  must  either 
straight  perjure,  or  split  his  faith;  I  thought 
it  better  to  prefer  a  blameless  silence  before 
the  sacred  office  of  speaking,  bought  and  be- 
gun with  servitude  and  forswearing."  Such 
a  passage  as  this  goes  far  to  explain  that  tor- 
rent of  wrath  which  Milton,  "  church-outed  by 
the  prelates,"  pours  upon  the  heads  of  the 
corrupted  clergy  in  Lycidas. 

But  this  preface  is,  perhaps,  even  more  re- 
markable for  its  revelation  of  the  conception 
of  the  great  poem  which  was  already  in  1641 
dawning  in  Milton's  mind.  He  had,  it  ap- 
pears, renounced  his  first  half-formed  plan 
of  writing  in  Latin,  "not  caring  once  to  be 
named  abroad,  but  content  with  these  British 
islands  as  my  world."  But  there  was  still 
much  that  remained  to  be  decided,  the  choice 
of    a   subject,    for   example,    "what   king   or 

[119] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

knight  might  be  chosen  in  whom  to  lay  the 
pattern  of  a  Christian  hero."     And  there  was 
the    question    of   the    form    which    the    poem 
should  take,  "  whether  that  epic  whereof  the 
two  poems  of  Homer  are  a  model,"  or  "those 
dramatic  constitutions  wherein  Sophocles  and 
Euripides   reign."     Above   all  there  was   the 
long   and   arduous   preparation   necessary  be- 
fore the  poem  could  even  be  begun,  "indus- 
trious and  select  reading,  steady  observation, 
insight  into  all  seemly  and  generous  arts  and 
affairs,"  for  the  poem,  when  at  last  it  should 
appear,  was  to  be  a  work  "  not  to  be  raised 
from  the  heat  of  youth,  or  the  vapours  of  wine; 
like  that  which  flows  at  waste  from  the  pen  of 
some  vulgar  amourist,  or  the  trencher  fury  of 
a  rhyming   parasite;   nor  to   be   obtained  by 
the    invocation    of    dame    Memory    and    her 
siren  daughters,  but  by  devout  prayer  to  that 
eternal  Spirit  who  can  enrich  with  all  utter- 
ance and  knowledge,  and  sends  out  his  sera- 
phim,  with   the    hallowed   fire    of   his    altar, 

[120  1 


The  Autobiography  of  Milton 

to    touch   and   purify   the   lips   of   whom  he 
pleases." 

An  even  more  interesting  autobiographical 
passage  occurs  in  the  Apology  for  Smectymnuus, 
published  in  1642.  This  pamphlet  was  written 
in  answer  to  a  savage  attack  upon  Milton 
composed  by  Bishop  Hall,  the  leader  of  the 
Episcopal  party,  and  his  son.  In  the  address 
to  the  reader  prefixed  to  this  attack  it  was 
asserted  that  Milton  had  spent  his  youth 
"loitering,  bezzling,  and  harlotting,"  that  he 
had  been  "  vomited  out  of  the  University  into 
a  suburb  sink  of  London,"  and  that,  wher- 
ever he  passed  his  mornings,  he  spent  his 
afternoons  "  at  the  playhouses  or  the  bordelli." 
No  more  absurd  charge  could  have  been  in- 
vented against  Milton  than  that  of  idleness 
and  vice,  and  yet  we  can  hardly  regret  the 
recklessness  of  his  adversaries,  since  it  gave 
the  poet  the  opportunity  for  such  a  magnifi- 
cent self-vindication.  After  thanking  his  op- 
ponent for  the  "commodious  lie"  that  he  was 

[121] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

expelled  from  Cambridge,  inasmuch  as  it 
gives  him  "apt  occasion  to  acknowledge  pub- 
licly with  all  grateful  mind  that  more  than 
ordinary  favour  and  respect,  which  I  found 
above  any  of  my  equals  at  the  hands  of  those 
courteous  and  learned  men,  the  fellows  of 
that  college  wherein  I  spent  some  years," 
Milton  goes  on  to  speak  of  his  present  mode 
of  life,  his  studies,  and  his  character. 

"  My  morning  haunts  are  where  they  should 
be,  at  home,"  he  says,  "  not  sleeping  nor  con- 
cocting the  surfeits  of  an  irregular  feast,  but 
up  and  stirring,  in  winter  often  ere  the  sound 
of  any  bell  awake  men  to  labor  or  to  devotion; 
in  summer  as  oft  with  the  bird  that  first  rouses, 
or  not  much  tardier,  to  read  good  authors  or 
cause  them  to  be  read,  till  the  attention  be 
weary,  or  memory  have  its  full  fraught:  then 
with  useful  and  generous  labours  preserving 
the  body's  health  and  hardiness  to  render 
lightsome,  clear,  and  not  lumpish  obedience 
to  the  mind,  to  the  cause  of  religion,  and  to 

[122] 


The  Autobiography  of  Milton 

our  country's  liberty,  when  it  shall  require 
firm  hearts  in  sound  bodies  to  stand  and 
cover  their  stations,  rather  than  to  see  the 
ruin  of  our  protestation,  and  the  inforcement 
of  a  slavish  life."  It  would  seem  from  these 
last  words  that  Milton  was  already  anticipat- 
ing the  civil  war  which  broke  out  shortly  after. 
Masson,  indeed,  thinks  that  the  passage  shows 
that  Milton  took  part  in  the  military  exercises 
of  the  London  citizens. 

Speaking  of  his  studies  Milton  says  that 
his  first  delight  was  "  the  smooth  elegiac  poets." 
Probably  the  reference  is  especially  to  Ovid, 
whom  we  know  that  Milton,  like  Shakespeare 
before  liim,  honored  somewhat  above  his  due. 
Yet,  he  continues,  "if  I  found  those  authors 
anywhere  speaking  unworthy  things  of  them- 
selves, or  unchaste  of  those  names  which  be- 
fore they  had  extolled,  this  effect  it  wrought 
with  me,  from  that  time  forward  their  art  I 
still  applauded,  but  the  men  I  deplored;  and 
above  them  all  preferred  the  two  famous  re- 

[123] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

nowners  of  Beatrice  and  Laura,  who  never 
write  but  honor  of  them  to  whom  they  devote 
their  verse,  displaying  subUme  and  pure 
thoughts  without  transgression.  And  it  was 
not  long  after  when  I  was  confirmed  in  this 
opinion  that  he  who  would  not  be  frustrate 
of  his  hope  to  write  well  hereafter  of  laudable 
things,  ought  himself  to  be  a  true  poem;  that 
is,  a  composition  and  pattern  of  the  best  and 
honourablest  things." 

"Next  I  betook  me  among  those  lofty 
fables  and  romances  "  (Milton  is  thinking  here, 
perhaps,  of  his  favorite  "  our  sage  and  serious 
poet,  Spenser")  "which  recount  in  solemn 
cantos  the  deeds  of  knighthood  founded  by  our 
victorious  kings.  There  I  read  it  in  the  oath 
of  every  knight,  that  he  should  defend  to  the 
expense  of  his  best  blood,  or  of  his  life,  if  it  so 
befell  him,  the  honour  and  chastity  of  virgin 
or  matron;  from  whence  even  then  I  learned 
what  a  noble  virtue  chastity  sure  must  be, 
to  the   defence   of  which   so   many   worthies, 

[  124] 


The  Autobiography  of  Milton 

by  such  a  dear  adventure  of  themselves,  had 
sworn.  .  .  .  Only  this  my  mind  gave  me, 
that  every  free  and  gentle  spirit,  without  that 
oath,  ought  to  be  bom  a  knight,  nor  needed 
to  expect  the  gilt  spur,  nor  the  laying  of  a 
sword  upon  his  shoulder,  to  stir  him  up,  both 
by  his  counsel  and  his  arms,  to  secure  and 
protect  the  weakness  of  any  attempted  chastity. 
So  that  even  these  books,  which  to  many 
others  have  been  the  fuel  of  wantoness  and 
loose  living  .  .  .  proved  to  me  so  many  in- 
citements to  the  love  and  steadfast  observa- 
tion of  that  virtue  which  abhors  the  society 
of  bordellos." 

"  Thus  from  the  laureate  fraternity  of  poets, 
riper  years  and  the  ceaseless  round  of  study 
and  reading  led  me  to  the  shady  spaces  of 
philosophy;  but  chiefly  to  the  divine  volumes 
of  Plato  and  his  equal  Xenophon;  where  if  I 
should  tell  ye  what  I  learnt  of  chastity  and 
love,  I  mean  that  which  is  truly  so,  whose 
charming  cup  is  only  virtue,  which  she  bears 

[125] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

in  her  hand  to  those  who  are  worthy  (the 
rest  are  cheated  with  a  thick,  intoxicating 
potion,  which  a  certain  sorceress,  the  abuser 
of  love's  name,  carries  about);  and  how  the 
first  and  chiefest  office  of  love  begins  and 
ends  in  the  soul,  ...  it  might  be  worth  your 
listening,  readers."  And  after  a  reference  to 
his  training  in  the  precepts  of  Christianity, 
where  he  learnt  that  unchastity  in  a  man, 
"though  not  commonly  thought  so,  must  be 
much  more  deflouring  and  dishonourable  than 
in  a  woman,"  Milton  winds  up  this  apologia 
pro  vita  sua  with  a  proud  confidence  of  vic- 
tory over  his  slanderer:  "Thus  large  have  I 
purposely  been,  that  if  I  have  been  justly 
taxed  with  this  crime,  it  may  come  upon  me 
after  all  this  my  confession  with  a  ten-fold 
shame." 

I  need  not  pursue  my  task  further,  I  think, 
of  setting  Milton  to  speak  for  himself  and 
show  us  in  his  own  noble  words  what  manner 
of   man   he   was.     I   have    selected   passages 

[126] 


The  AutobiograpJiij  of  Milton 

from  two  of  the  least  read  of  his  prose  works 
in  EngHsh,  and  from  a  Latin  treatise  which, 
I  fancy,  is  seldom  read  at  all.  But  there  is 
hardly  any  work  of  Milton,  that  most  intensely 
self-conscious  of  authors,  from  which  it  would 
not  be  possible  to  learn  something  about  the 
man  behind  the  work.  The  divorce  tracts, 
for  example,  at  once  reveal  to  us  his  lofty  ideal 
of  marriage,  a  subject  on  which  he  is  the 
most  generally  misunderstood  of  men,  and 
explain  simply  enough  the  catastrophe  of  his 
own  first  attempt  to  realize  this  ideal.  And 
the  Areopagitica,  perhaps  the  noblest  of  all 
his  pamphlets,  is  on  fire  with  that  love  of 
freedom  in  thought,  speech,  and  action,  which 
was  the  dominating  principle  of  Milton's  life. 
And  as  for  his  poems,  from  the  Sonnet  on 
being  arrived  to  the  age  of  twenty-three  to  the 
Samson  written  in  his  blind  old  age  when 
"  fallen  on  evil  days  and  evil  tongues,"  there  is, 
I  believe,  hardly  one  in  which  we  may  not 
discover  some  exquisite  touch  of  self-revela- 

[127] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

tion.  Milton  could  never,  we  may  be  sure, 
have  been  a  dramatist  of  the  first  order,  if 
for  no  other  reason  than  that  it  was  impos- 
sible for  him  to  conceal  his  own  personality 
behind  the  characters  he  created. 

I  have  sometimes  thought  that  it  would  be 
a  pleasant  and  not  unprofitable  task  for  a 
student  of  literature  to  go  through  the  letters, 
essays,  and  poems  of  Milton  in  detail,  to  pick 
out  the  autobiographical  passages,  and  to 
arrange  them  in  such  an  order  that  the  poet 
might  himself  tell  us  the  story  of  his  inner 
and  his  outer  life  from  boyhood  till  old  age. 
Such  an  autobiography  certainly  would  be 
briefer  than  the  enormous  encyclopaedia  of 
Milton  and  his  times  by  Professor  Masson 
which  serves  to-day  for  the  standard  life  of 
the  poet.  But,  unless  I  am  much  mistaken, 
the  ordinary  reader  would  learn  more  about 
Milton's  personality  from  such  a  compilation 
than  from  the  six  huge  volumes  in  which,  if 
the  truth  must  be  told,  the  poet  too  often  dis- 

[128] 


The  Autobiography  of  Milton 

appears  amid  a  baffling  crowd  of  contem- 
poraries, more  or  less  obscure,  as  the  outline 
of  some  splendid  forest  tree  is  often  hidden 
from  the  spectator  by  the  lower  growths  that 
cluster  round  it. 

It  is  not  only  in  Professor  Masson's  vast 
work,  however,  that  the  personality  of  Milton 
is  obscured.  On  the  contrary,  I  beUeve, 
there  is  no  English  poet,  of  whose  life  we 
know  so  much,  whose  true  character,  at  the 
same  time,  has  been  so  generally  misunder- 
stood. In  his  own  day  the  clouds  of  partisan 
warfare  hung  thick  around  him;  in  our  own 
time  he  has  too  often  been  exalted  into  a  re- 
motely superhuman  figure.  Or  if  at  times  a 
critic  makes  the  effort  to  bring  Milton  back 
to  earth  again  and  portray  him  as  a  man  of 
like  passions  with  ourselves,  the  reaction 
against  the  ordinary  view  is  too  likely  to  end 
in  an  attempt  to  belittle  the  heroic  figure. 
Here,  for  example,  is  Professor  Saintesbury's 
rough    sketch:     "Milton's  character  was  not 

[129] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

an  amiable  one,  nor  even  wholly  estimable. 
It  is  probable  that  he  never  in  the  course  of 
his  whole  life  did  anything  that  he  considered 
wrong,  but  unfortunately  examples  are  not 
far  to  seek  of  the  facility  with  which  desire 
can  be  made  to  confound  itself  with  de- 
liberate approval.  He  was  an  exacting  if  not 
tyrannical  husband  and  father;  he  held  in  the 
most  exaggerated  fashion  the  doctrine  of  the 
superiority  of  man  to  woman;  his  egotism  in 
a  man  who  had  accomplished  less  would  be 
half  ludicrous  and  half  disgusting;  his  faculty 
of  appreciation  beyond  his  own  immediate 
tastes  and  interests  was  small;  his  intolerance 
surpassed  that  of  an  inquisitor."  Such  a  cari- 
cature may,  perhaps,  have  its  use  as  an  oflFset 
to  the  uncritical  and  boyish  idealization  of 
Macaulay's  famous  essay;  but  it  can  hardly 
be  accepted  as  a  realistic  portrait  of  Milton. 

The  golden  mean  between  such  extremes 
might  perhaps  be  found  by  some  such  method 
as  I  have  suggested  above.     Certainly  if  we 

[130] 


The  Autobiography  of  Milton 

would  obtain  a  true  portrait  of  Milton,  "in 
his  habit  as  he  lived,"  we  might  well  spend 
the  time  and  care  which  others  have  devoted 
to  ransacking  dusty  archives  or  to  evolving 
an  ideal  figure  from  the  depths  of  self-con- 
sciousness, in  the  study  and  sympathetic  in- 
terpretation of  those  passages  of  his  works 
in  which  the  poet  reveals  to  us  his  aims  and 
hopes  and  beliefs  and  sympathies,  in  what 
I  have  ventured  to  call  the  autobiography 
of  Milton. 


[131] 


The 
Personality  of  Dr.  Johnson 

IT  is  almost  impossible  for  us,  looking  back 
over  the  century  and  a  quarter  which 
separates  us  from  the  death  of  Dr.  Johnson, 
to  realize  the  position  which  for  thirty  years 
he  had  held  in  the  world  of  English  letters. 
And  when  at  last  by  an  effort  of  the  historic 
imagination  we  attain  to  some  imperfect  con- 
ception of  his  place,  we  ask  ourselves  with 
something  like  amazement  to  what  this  un- 
disputed supremacy  was  due.  Johnson  was 
the  last  literary  autocrat  of  England,  the 
"great  Cham  of  literature,"  as  his  contem- 
porary, SmoUet,  aptly  called  him.  He  filled 
the  throne  which  had  been  occupied  before 
him  by  Pope,  by  Dryden,  and  by  Ben  Jonson, 
each  of  them,  if  not  a  greater  man,  assuredly 

[132] 


The  Personality  of  Dr.  Johnson 

a  greater  writer.  Yet  it  may  well  be  ques- 
tioned whether  any  of  them  ever  received 
such  undivided  homage  as  was  accorded  dur- 
ing the  last  years  of  his  life  to  Samuel  John- 
son. It  was  not  on  account  of  the  lack  of 
fellow-workers  in  the  field  of  polite  letters 
that  Johnson  was  so  honored.  His  claim  to 
recognition  rested  upon  his  work  as  a  moral 
philosopher,  a  prose  writer,  and  a  poet.  Now 
in  depth  and  originality  of  thought  he  was 
surpassed  by  at  least  three  of  his  contem- 
poraries, Hume,  Burke,  and  Adam  Smith. 
As  a  master  of  prose  style  Johnson  is  now, 
perhaps,  too  generally  undervalued,  yet  in  the 
weightier  matters,  such  as  invention,  humor, 
and  power  of  characterization,  his  work  is  not 
to  be  compared  with  that  of  such  masters  as 
Fielding  and  Goldsmith.  And  as  for  poetry, 
it  is  only  by  a  certain  efiFort  of  the  will  that  the 
modern  reader  trained  in  the  romantic  school 
of  Tennyson  and  Keats,  and  looking  back 
from  them  to  Milton   and  Shakespeare,  can 

[133] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

admit  the  claim  of  Johnson's  sonorous  and 
rhetorical  couplets  to  be  poetry  at  all. 

The  fact  seems  to  be  that  Johnson's  dicta- 
torship was  due  to  his  personality  rather  than 
to  his  productions,  to  his  spoken  rather  than 
to  his  written  words.  The  greatest  writers 
have  lost  themselves  in  their  work:  Homer  is 
only  a  name;  Shakespeare's  true  self  is  barely 
discernible  through  his  plays  and  poems. 
Johnson,  on  the  other  hand,  has  left  the  im- 
press of  his  strong,  acute,  yet  sharply  limited 
personality  on  every  line  he  wrote.  In  one 
of  his  outbursts  of  dogmatic  criticism  Johnson 
says,  most  unjustly,  that  no  man  could  have 
fancied  that  he  read  Lycidas  with  pleasure 
had  he  not  known  the  author.  It  would  be 
far  less  unjust,  and  probably  a  close  approxi- 
mation to  the  truth,  to  say  that  no  man  to-day 
reads  the  Rambler  or  Rasselas  except  as  he  is  at- 
tracted to  them  by  the  fame  of  their  author,  and 
with  the  hope,  not  always  realized,  of  finding  in 
them  the  cause  and  justification  of  that  fame. 

[134] 


The  Personality  of  Dr.  Johnson 

Naturally  in  our  day,  when  the  whole  aspect 
of  the  world  has  been  changed  by  the  economic 
revolution,  the  discoveries  of  science,  and  the 
triumph  of  democracy,  the  cause  and  justi- 
fication of  Johnson's  fame  is  harder  to  dis- 
cover in  his  books  than  it  was  in  his  own  time. 
And  even  in  his  own  time,  as  has  already  been 
suggested,  it  was  probably  rather  to  his  com- 
manding personality  than  to  his  works  that 
his  supremacy  was  due.  Fortunately  for  us 
his  personality  still  survives,  imperishable  and 
wholly  independent  of  his  work.  By  some 
happy  fate,  as  if  in  compensation  for  the 
hardships  and  miseries  of  his  youth,  he  en- 
countered in  middle  life  the  man  who  was 
to  make  him  immortal.  No  happier  con- 
junction of  men  could  be  imagined  than  that 
of  Samuel  Johnson  and  James  Boswell. 
Johnson  loved  to  talk,  Boswell  to  Hsten; 
Johnson  was  perhaps  the  most  entertaining 
and  effective  talker  that  ever  lived,  Boswell 
was  indisputably  the  best  reporter  of  conver- 

[135] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

sation;  Johnson  asserted  his  right,  almost 
tyrannically  at  times,  to  be  the  absolute  lord 
of  every  society  into  which  he  entered,  Boswell 
was  willing  either  to  efface  himself,  or  to 
obtrude  himself  just  far  enough  to  catch  the 
great  man's  eye  and  provoke  one  of  those 
outbursts  which  dehghted  the  hearers  at  that 
time  and  have  delighted  thousands  of  readers 
ever  since.  Johnson  was  pardonably  proud, 
and  somewhat  over  quick  to  take  offense, 
though  always  eager  to  forgive;  Boswell,  on 
the  other  hand,  was  almost  humihatingly 
wanting  in  self-respect,  incapable  of  resent- 
ment, and  only  too  ready  to  be  forgiven. 
Finally,  Johnson's  ideas,  beliefs,  and  principles 
were  as  firm  and  immutable  as  bronze;  Bos- 
well's  mind  was  wax  to  receive  and  marble 
to  retain;  and  thus  the  hero  left  upon  his 
worshiper  an  indelible  imprint  which  has 
transmitted  his  own  true  form  and  features 
to  all  posterity.  The  two  men  were  made 
for  each  other,  and  if  Boswell  has  achieved 

[136] 


The  Personality  of  Dr.  Johnson 

immortality  in  the  company  of  Johnson,  he 
has  obtained  no  more  than  his  just  reward. 
It  is  quite  time  to  have  done  with  Macaulay's 
silly  paradox  that  it  was  only  because  he  was 
so  great  a  fool  that  Boswell  wrote  so  great  a 
book.  Carlyle  answered  that  paradox  at  the 
time.  "  Falser  hypothesis,"  he  says,  "  never  rose 
in  human  soul."  Unfortunately  the  popu- 
larity of  Macaulay's  essay  on  Boswell's  Life 
of  Johnson  stands  to  Carlyle's  work  on  the 
same  subject  in  inverse  ratio  to  the  real  value 
of  their  respective  pictures  of  hero  and  bi- 
ographer; and  it  is  permissible,  therefore,  in 
view  of  the  gross  injustice  done  to  one  who 
was  not  only  Johnson's  biographer,  but  his 
dear  friend,  to  quote  the  too  little  known 
words  of  Carlyle's  verdict.  "  Boswell  wrote  a 
good  book,"  so  the  final  judgment  runs,  "be- 
cause he  had  a  heart  and  an  eye  to  discern  wis- 
dom, and  an  utterance  to  render  it  forth;  be- 
cause of  his  free  insight,  his  lively  talent,  above 
all,   of  his  love  and  child-like  open-minded- 

[137] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

ness.  .  .  .  Neither  James  Boswell's  good  book, 
nor  any  other  good  thing,  in  any  time,  nor  in 
any  place,  was,  is,  or  can  be  performed  by  any 
man  in  virtue  of  his  badness,  but  always  and 
solely  in  spite  thereof." 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  picture  of 
Johnson  that  Boswell  gives  us  is  a  picture  of 
Johnson  in  his  dechning  years,  his  character 
formed,  his  work,  for  the  most  part,  done. 
Johnson  was  already  fifty-two  when  Boswell 
met  him,  and  although  he  had  yet  twenty- 
three  years  of  Hfe  before  him  these  were  tran- 
quil and  idle  years  compared  with  the  misery 
and  grinding  toil  of  his  earlier  life.  The 
period  of  his  acquaintance  with  Boswell  was 
one  long  Indian  summer  in  which  the  storm- 
beaten  hero  rested  from  his  labors  and  en- 
joyed, so  far  as  the  deep-rooted  melancholy 
of  his  nature  would  allow,  the  sunshine  of 
prosperity.  The  Johnson  whom  we  all  know 
in  the  famous  biography,  the  great  dictator  of 
literature,   the  autocrat  of  the  famous  club, 

[138] 


The  Personality  of  Dr.  Johnson 

the  revered  philosopher  whose  grotesque  antics 
moved  his  friends  to  alternate  awe  and  laughter, 
the  tender-hearted  and  rough-mannered  man 
who  bullied  the  strong  and  bowed  humbly 
to  the  weak,  was  the  product  of  a  long  life 
amid  an  environment  unknown  to  Boswell 
except  by  report,  and  of  an  heredity  which, 
had  he  known,  he  could  not  have  appreciated. 
Boswell  has  furnished  us  with  full  materials 
for  an  estimate  of  Johnson's  character;  but 
before  we  can  be  in  a  position  to  estimate  it 
rightly,  we  must  know  something  of  the 
process  by  which  that  character  was  evolved. 
Samuel  Johnson  was  born  in  the  cathedral 
town  of  Lichfield  in  1709.  His  father, 
Michael,  was  a  book-seller,  a  bigoted  Tory 
and  a  man  of  learning,  but  superstitious, 
utterly  careless  of  money  matters,  and  afflicted 
with  the  constitutional  melancholy  which  was 
characteristic  of  his  famous  son.  Johnson,  it 
must  be  owned,  had  good  grounds  for  melan- 
choly; he  inherited  the  taint  of  scrofula  and 

[139] 


Studies  of  a  BooMover 

in  early  childhood  almost  wholly  lost  his 
sight  from  this  disease.  In  spite  of  his  great 
physical  strength,  he  suffered  throughout  his 
hfe  from  a  variety  of  ailments,  he  was  attacked 
by  paralysis  in  his  old  age,  and  finally  fell  a 
victim  to  a  terrible  complication  of  gout, 
dropsy,  kidney  trouble,  and  lung  disease. 
When  we  remember  the  vociferous  lamenta- 
tions with  which  Carlyle  bewailed  his  attacks 
of  dyspepsia  and  insomnia,  or  the  less  noisy 
but  more  terrible  misanthropy  with  which 
Swift  revenged  himself  upon  a  world  which, 
at  least,  was  innocent  of  his  physical  suffer- 
ings, we  find  something  truly  noble  in  the  un- 
shaken fortitude  with  which  Johnson  faced 
his  miseries.  Their  one  result  upon  his  mind, 
it  would  seem,  was  a  somewhat  scornful  treat- 
ment of  the  affected  sorrows  and  sentimental 
troubles  with  which  his  age  was  so  plenteously 
endowed. 

The  usual  tales  are  told  of  Johnson's  pre- 
cocity.    In  spite  of  his  deficient  eyesight  he 

[  140  ] 


The  Personality  of  Dr.  Johnson 

read  prodigiously.  One  of  the  most  charac- 
teristic of  the  anecdotes  preserved  by  Boswell 
tells  how  the  boy  climbed  up  a  ladder  in  his 
father's  shop  in  search  of  some  apples  which 
he  fancied  his  brother  had  hidden  behind  a 
huge  folio  on  the  upper  shelf.  The  apples 
were  undiscoverable,  but  the  book  proved  to 
be  a  copy  of  Petrarch  whose  name  Johnson 
had  come  across  somewhere  in  his  voluminous 
reading.  Hunger  was  forgotten  in  the  de- 
light of  a  new  discovery,  and  the  boy  sat  upon 
the  ladder  with  the  folio  on  his  knees,  reading 
until  he  had  finished  a  great  part  of  the  book. 
The  story  is  typical  of  much  of  Johnson's 
life  and,  in  particular,  of  his  method  of  study, 
accidental,  spasmodic,  intense  and  concen- 
trated while  the  fit  was  on,  sluggish  and  inter- 
mittent when  the  moment  passed.  If  he  had 
a  subject  to  get  up,  he  invariably  neglected  it. 
When  preparing  his  edition  of  Shakespeare, 
he  declined  to  avail  himself  of  Garrick's  un- 
rivalled collection  of  early  editions  and  con- 

[141] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

temporary  plays  because  he  thought  that  Gar- 
rick  had  not  pressed  him  sufficiently  to  make 
use  of  them.  When  he  was  composing  the 
Lives  of  the  Poets,  he  snubbed  Boswell  for 
busying  himself  to  secure  materials,  and  de- 
clared that  he  didn't  care  to  know  about  Pope. 
On  the  other  hand,  he  probably  read  more 
miscellaneous  printed  matter  than  any  man 
of  his  century.  With  all  his  reading,  how- 
ever, he  was  the  very  opposite  of  the  typical 
book-worm.  No  creature  is  more  universally 
despised  by  normal  boys  than  a  young  book- 
worm, but  Johnson  even  in  his  school-days 
exercised  an  undisputed  sway  over  his  asso- 
ciates. He  did  his  friends'  tasks  for  them, 
he  served  as  the  standard  by  which  every  boy's 
scholarship  was  tested,  and  he  rode  trium- 
phantly to  school  in  the  morning  mounted 
upon  a  comrade's  back,  with  two  others  sup- 
porting him  on  either  hand. 

Johnson    was    sent    up    to    Oxford    on    the 
promise,  never  fulfilled,  of  pecuniary  support 

[142] 


The  Personality  of  Dr.  Johnson 

from  certain  of  his  father's  friends.  The 
anecdotes  that  are  told  of  his  college  life  are 
extremely  characteristic.  On  his  entrance  he 
amazed  his  tutor  by  quoting  Macrobius,  he 
stayed  away  from  lectures  to  slide  on  the  ice 
in  Christ  Church  meadows,  he  neglected  the 
required  exercises  in  Latin  verse,  but  latinized 
a  poem  of  Pope's  in  such  a  masterly  fashion 
as  to  attract  the  notice  of  the  whole  university. 
His  old  master  told  Boswell  that  Johnson  at 
college  was  a  "gay,  frolicsome  fellow,  caressed 
and  loved  by  all  about  him";  but  Johnson 
himself  told  another  story:  "Oh,  sir,"  he  said, 
"I  was  mad  and  violent.  It  was  bitterness 
which  they  mistook  for  frolic.  I  was  miser- 
ably poor  and  I  thought  to  fight  my  way  by 
my  literature  and  by  my  wit,  so  I  disregarded 
all  power  and  all  authority."  He  was  gener- 
ally seen  "lounging  at  the  college  gate  with  a 
circle  of  young  students  round  him,  whom 
he  was  entertaining  with  his  wit  and  keeping 
from  their  studies,  if  not  spiriting  up  to  re- 

[143] 


Studies  of  a  BooMover 

bellion  against  the  college  discipline."  Yet 
when  one  of  these  admiring  friends  put  a  pair 
of  shoes  at  his  door  to  replace  the  broken  pair 
through  which  his  feet  were  showing,  Johnson 
threw  them  away  in  a  passion  of  resentment. 
And  this  although  he  had  already  ceased  to 
attend  a  highly  valued  course  of  lectures  be- 
cause his  shabby  dress  made  him,  as  he 
thought,  an  object  of  contempt  to  strangers. 
Johnson  loved  learning  much,  but  indepen- 
dence more.  The  youth  who  threw  away  the 
shoes  was  the  father  of  the  man  who  wrote 
the  famous  letter  to  Lord  Chesterfield  "pro- 
claiming to  the  listening  world  that  Patronage 
should  be  no  more." 

Johnson  added  but  little  to  his  mental 
equipment  at  Oxford;  indeed  he  said  long 
afterwards  that  he  knew  as  much  when  he 
went  there  at  eighteen  as  he  did  when  he  was 
fifty;  but  he  acquired  something  better  than 
learning.  From  an  early  age  he  had  been 
something   of    a   free-thinker    and    a   careless 

[144] 


The  Personality  of  Dr.  Johnson 

talker  about  religion,  probably  more  to  show 
his  wit  than  for  any  other  reason.  But  during 
his  short  stay  at  Oxford  —  he  was  in  residence 
only  a  little  more  than  a  year  —  he  read  that 
strangely  powerful  book,  Law's  Call  to  a  Seri- 
ous Life,  and  under  its  influence  became 
what  he  continued  to  his  death,  not  only  a 
sincere  believer,  but  a  stalwart  champion  of  re- 
vealed religion.  And  this  is  the  more  remark- 
able since,  with  hardly  an  exception,  the  emi- 
nent men  of  his  day,  Bolingbroke,  Pope, 
Hume,  and  Voltaire,  were  either  open  infidels 
or  complacent  and  self-contented  Deists.  We 
must  not  forget,  of  course,  the  Evangelical  move- 
ment under  the  fervent  apostleship  of  Wesley 
and  Whitfield,  but  this  movement  was  essen- 
tially an  appeal  from  the  intellect  to  the  emo- 
tional faculties  of  men,  and  as  such  wholly 
alien  to  the  strong  sense  and  self-restrained 
nature  of  Johnson.  His  prayers  were  made 
in  his  closet  or  written  in  his  note-books,  not 
performed  with  unction  upon  the  corners  of  the 

[145] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

streets.  The  traditional  forms  of  the  Eng- 
lish church  gave  full  scope  for  his  exercises  of 
devotion,  and  he  was  Tory  enough  to  insist 
upon  the  maintenance  in  all  her  privileges  of 
the  national  church;  but  beneath  all  forms  he 
recognized,  as  perhaps  no  other  man  did  in 
his  day,  the  essential  unity  of  religion.  In 
the  true  spirit  of  a  sincere  believer  he  was 
accustomed  to  reproach  himself  bitterly  for 
his  failure  to  live  up  to  the  principles  of  his 
creed,  but  to  us,  looking  back  upon  his  blame- 
less life  and  his  thousand  silent  deeds  of 
charity,  he  seems  the  very  embodiment  of  Saint 
James's  definition  of  religion. 

Less  is  known  of  Johnson  during  the  period 
between  his  departure  from  Oxford  and  his 
arrival  in  London  than  at  any  other  time  of 
his  life.  His  father's  health  and  business 
were  failing  together  and  he  died  in  1731  on 
the  verge  of  bankruptcy.  Of  his  little  inheri- 
tance of  £20,  Johnson  laid  by  eleven  and 
went  out  into  the  world  to  seek  his  living.     He 

[146] 


The  Personality  of  Dr.  Johnson 

found  it  no  easy  task.  He  tried  to  turn  his 
education  to  account  as  a  teacher  in  a  Httle 
school,  but  found  it  as  disagreeable  for  him 
to  teach  as  it  was  for  the  boys  to  learn.  He 
earned  a  few  guineas  by  writing  and  trans- 
lating for  a  provincial  bookseller.  He  fell  in 
love  with  and  married  a  widow  of  nearly 
twice  his  age,  a  fact  which  for  some  reason 
has  proved  a  source  of  inextinguishable  mirth 
to  vulgar  minds.  It  is  impossible  to  be  angry 
with  the  born  mimic,  David  Garrick,  who  in 
after  years  used  to  convulse  London  drawing- 
rooms  by  a  caricature  of  the  love-scenes  be- 
tween Johnson  and  the  widow,  which  he  had 
witnessed  with  a  school-boy's  apish  delight  in 
their  ludicrous  side;  but  it  is  not  easy  to  for- 
give Macaulay  for  abusing  the  woman  whom 
Johnson  loved  as  "a  tawdry  painted  grand- 
mother who  accepted  his  addresses  with  a 
readiness  that  did  her  little  honor."  Not  little, 
but  greatly  to  her  honor  was  it  that  she  had 
eyes  to  pierce  beneath  the  rough  exterior  of 

[147] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

this  poor,  ugly,  and  miserable  scholar,  and  to 
see  the  strength  and  sincerity  of  his  love;  nor 
less  that  she  had  the  intelUgence  to  recognize 
in  him  "the  most  sensible  man  she  ever  saw 
in  her  life." 

With  the  money  that  his  wife  brought  him 
Johnson  once  more  tried  his  hand  at  teaching 
and  opened  a  school  near  Lichfield.  But  his 
second  attempt  was  no  more  successful  than 
his  first.  Not  more  than  eight  boys  ever  at- 
tended the  school,  and  after  a  hopeless  struggle 
of  a  year  or  two,  Johnson  abandoned  it  and 
went  up  to  London  to  seek  his  fortune  with 
two-pence  ha'penny  in  his  pocket  and  an  un- 
finished drama  in  his  portmanteau. 

London  was  at  that  time,  to  a  degree  which 
it  has  never  since  been,  the  intellectual  and 
literary  center  of  the  English-speaking  world. 
Indeed,  if  we  except  the  brilliant  literary 
coterie  which  a  few  years  later  gathered  around 
Hume  in  Edinburgh,  London  may  be  said 
to   have  enjoyed    throughout    the   middle    of 

[148] 


The  Personality  of  Dr.  Johnson 

the  eighteenth  century  a  practical  monopoly 
of  Englishmen  of  wit  and  letters.  It  offered 
the  only  field  in  which  a  man  of  Johnson's 
tastes  and  abilities  might  rise  to  fame  and 
fortune.  Of  these  two,  fame  was  in  that  day 
far  easier  of  attainment  than  fortune.  Ma- 
caulay  has  drawn  a  memorable  picture  of  the 
depressed  state  of  letters  at  the  time  of  John- 
son's arrival  in  London,  and  of  the  miseries 
suffered  there  by  starving  authors.  As  usual 
with  Macaulay  the  picture  is  overdrawn,  but 
there  is  no  doubt  that  his  main  contention  is 
true.  The  golden  age  of  patronage  had 
passed  away,  the  age  in  which  the  writer  ap- 
pealed directly  to  a  large  and  liberal  reading 
public  had  not  yet  arrived;  and  in  the  inter- 
regnum, "  struggling  between  two  worlds,  one 
dead,  one  powerless  to  be  born,"  Johnson  and 
his  fellows  had  a  long  and  bitter  contest  with 
all  the  ills  that  then  assailed  the  scholar's  life, 

"  Toil,  envy,  want,  the  patron,  and  the  jail." 
But  where  weaker  men  succumbed,  Johnson's 

[  149  ] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

courage,   industry,   and  strong  self-command 
brought  him  nobly  through  the  battle. 

Johnson's  emergence  from  the  sea  in  which 
so  many  of  his  fellows  sank  was,  indeed,  a 
striking  example  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest. 
Of  all  the  struggling  men  of  letters  in  his  day 
no  one  was  so  well  fitted  to  make  his  hands 
keep  his  head.     His  native  independence  of 
mind  kept  him  from  the  snares  of  patronage 
in  which  so  brilliant  a  genius  as  his  friend 
Savage    perished    miserably;    his    proud    self- 
confidence  prevented  him  from  becoming  the 
abject    slave    of    the    book-sellers.     His    en- 
counter with  Osborne,  one  of  the  most  promi- 
nent publishers  of  the  day,  has  become  tradi- 
tional.     He   is    said   to    have    knocked   him 
down  with  a  folio  Bible  and  to  have  put  his 
foot  upon  his  neck  in  sign  of  triumph,  but 
Johnson  told  Boswell  the  story  in  a  simpler 
fashion:  "Sir,  he  was  impertinent  to  me,  and 
I  beat  him;"  and  he  added  later,  "I  have  beat 
many  a  fellow,  but  the  rest  had  the  wit  to  hold 

[150] 


The  Personalihj  of  Dr.  Johnson 

their  tongues."  Although  by  no  means  con- 
temptuous of  the  good  things  of  Hfe,  he  could 
and  often  did  live  on  as  near  nothing  a  day  as 
was  humanly  possible,  and  the  want  of  a 
dinner  never  lowered  the  quality  or  quantity 
of  his  literary  product.  On  the  contrary,  his 
natural  indolence  seemed  to  need  the  spur  of 
sharp  necessity.  When  free  from  care  he  was, 
in  the  fine  phrase  of  his  day,  "vastly  idle"; 
but  he  was  at  need  capable  of  the  most  ex- 
traordinary exertions.  He  wrote  forty-eight 
printed  pages  of  the  Lije  of  Savage  at  a 
sitting;  he  began  and  finished  his  story  of 
Rasselas  in  a  single  week.  And  he  was  as 
versatile  as  he  was  energetic.  For  the  Gentle- 
man s  Magazine,  with  which  he  became  con- 
nected soon  after  his  arrival  in  London,  he 
wrote  verses  in  Latin,  Greek,  and  English, 
translations  from  French  and  Italian,  essays, 
biographical  sketches,  prefaces,  and  addresses 
to  the  subscribers.  Perhaps  of  all  his  labors 
for  the  magazine  that  which  attracted  most 

[151] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

attention  was  his  version  of  the  debates  in 
ParUament.  The  House  of  Commons  at  that 
time  and  for  years  afterwards  strictly  pro- 
hibited any  account  of  its  proceedings;  but  the 
enterprising  pubUsher  of  the  Gentleman's 
Magazine  managed  to  bribe  the  doorkeepers 
to  admit  men  who  reported  to  him  the  sub- 
jects of  discussion,  the  names  of  the  speakers, 
and  a  few  scanty  notes  of  their  arguments. 
Out  of  these  materials  Johnson  composed, 
under  the  title  of  Debates  of  the  Senate  of 
Lilliput,  a  series  of  speeches  which,  in  the 
judgment  of  his  contemporaries,  surpassed  the 
eloquence  of  Demosthenes,  and  greatly  in- 
creased the  sale  of  the  magazine. 

In  spite  of  his  poverty,  however,  as  soon  as 
Johnson  discovered  that  these  speeches  were 
being  received  as  the  genuine  orations  de- 
livered in  Parliament,  he  ceased  to  compose 
them,  "  for,"  said  he,  "  I  would  not  be  accessory 
to  the  propagation  of  falsehood."  As  this 
fact  bears  witness  to  Johnson's  tenderness  of 

[152] 


The  Personality  of  Dr.  Johnson 

conscience,  another  incident  is  equally  en- 
lightening as  to  his  political  prejudices. 
When  praised  for  the  impartiality  with  which 
he  had  distributed  reason  and  eloquence,  he 
answered:  "That  is  not  quite  true.  I  saved 
appearances  tolerably  well;  but  I  took  care 
that  the  Whig  dogs  should  not  have  the  best 
of  it." 

It  was  fortunate  for  Johnson  in  more  ways 
than  one  that  at  the  crisis  of  his  life  he  boldly 
plunged  into  the  world  of  London.  Had  he 
remained  in  the  provinces  he  would  have 
rotted  in  obscurity  or  collapsed  under  the  de- 
pressing influence  of  an  environment  to  which 
he  was  in  no  way  adapted.  On  the  other  hand, 
had  circumstances  permitted  him  to  live  like 
Gray  in  the  dignified  seclusion  of  a  college 
fellowship,  he  would  probably  have  done  even 
less  work  than  Gray  and  in  the  end  gone 
melancholy  mad.  He  had  not  the  sHghtest 
taste  for  country  life,  and  ridiculed  with 
boisterous  scorn  the  supposed  delights  of  soli- 

[153] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

tude.  Possibly  on  account  of  his  deficient 
eyesight  he  had  no  appreciation  whatever  of 
the  beauties  of  nature;  one  prospect,  he  said, 
resembles  another  very  closely,  and  one  blade 
of  grass  is  exactly  like  another.  The  demon 
of  melancholy,  "  a  horrible  hypochondria,  with 
perpetual  irritation,  fretfulness,  and  impa- 
tience, with  dejection,  gloom,  and  despair 
which  made  existence  misery,"  was  not  to 
be  exorcised  by  solitary  walks  in  country 
fields.  What  Johnson  needed  was  not  only 
work,  but  society,  close  contact  with  all  sorts 
and  conditions  of  men,  friendships,  enmities, 
whatever  could  draw  him  out  of  himself  and 
make  him  forget.  All  this  he  found  in  Lon- 
don. No  man  of  his  time  knew  so  well  the 
great  city,  and  all  the  varieties  of  life  contained 
vrithin  its  walls.  He  slept  with  beggars,  or 
wandered  houseless  through  the  streets  at 
night  with  a  brother  poet;  he  slanged  a 
bargeman,  laughed  and  jested  with  Garrick's 
actresses,  or  talked  "with  profound  respect, 

[154] 


The  Personality  oj  Dr.  Johnson 

but  still  in  a  firm,  manly  manner,  with  his 
sonorous  voice,"  to  Majesty  itself.  "I  look 
upon  a  day  as  lost,"  he  said,  "  in  which  I  do  not 
make  a  new  acquaintance."  The  fact  that 
he  never  lost  a  friend  except  by  death  shows 
that  he  was  as  tenacious  of  old  friendships  as 
he  was  eager  to  acquire  new.  He  had,  in  fact, 
a  very  genius  for  friendship,  and  the  circle 
that  gathered  round  him  in  his  later  years 
included  not  only  poets,  scholars,  and  men 
of  letters,  but  the  most  prominent  painters, 
actors,  musicians,  doctors,  and  statesmen  in 
England. 

Johnson's  attitude  toward  the  great  city 
where  he  suffered  so  much  and  gained  so 
much  is  not  to  be  judged  from  his  poem, 
London.  The  bitterness  of  that  early  satire  is 
due  in  part  to  the  tone  of  the  author  from  whom 
it  is  imitated,  in  part,  perhaps,  to  the  temper  of 
Savage  to  whom  it  was  addressed.  But  even 
in  this  early  work  it  may  be  noted  that  while 
the  abuse  of  the  town  is  vivid  and  direct,  — 

[155] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

"Here  malice,  rapine,  accident  conspire, 
And  now  a  rabble  rages,  now  a  fire ; 
Here  falling  houses  thunder  on  your  head, 
And  here  a  female  atheist  talks  you  dead, — " 

the  contrasting  praises  of  the  country  are 
absolutely  commonplace  and  artificial,  per- 
haps the  only  insincere  lines  that  Johnson  ever 
wrote.  We  can  well  imagine  with  what  ridi- 
cule he  would  in  later  years  have  chastised  a 
presumptuous  friend  who  urged  him  to  fulfil 
the  prophecy  of  Thales  and,  abandoning  the 
folhes  of  the  town,  "  fly  for  refuge  to  the  wilds 
of  Kent."  London  was  no  stony-hearted  step- 
mother to  Johnson,  but  an  Alma  Mater  dearer 
even  than  his  own  mother  university.  He 
preferred  Fleet  Street  to  the  finest  prospect  in 
the  Highlands;  declared  that  the  full  tide  of 
human  existence  was  realized  in  all  its  magni- 
tude at  Charing  Cross,  and  summed  up  the 
feeling  of  thousands  of  lovers  of  the  town  be- 
fore and  since  his  day  in  the  words,  "When  a 
man  is  tired  of  London,  he  is  tired  of  life." 

[156] 


The  Personality  of  Dr.  Johnson 

It  would  take  too  long  to  trace  the  evolution 
of  Johnson  from  the  unknown  correspondent 
of  the  Gentleman's  Magazine  to  the  dicta- 
torship of  letters  where  Boswell  found  him; 
but  a  few  of  the  landmarks  of  his  career  may 
be  noted.  His  London  in  1738  brought  him 
ten  guineas  and  the  praise  of  Pope.  His  Life 
of  Savage  in  1744  attracted  considerable  atten- 
tion, not  only  from  the  interest  of  its  subject, 
but  from  the  vividness  of  its  characterization 
and  the  profound  gravity  of  its  morality.  It 
is  written  in  Johnson's  heaviest  and  most  poly- 
syllabic style;  but  it  is  worth  reading  even 
today  for  its  dexterous  blending  of  moral  criti- 
cism and  Christian  charity.  Indeed,  it  is  at 
times  almost  amusing  to  see  how  far  John- 
son's warm  heart  leads  him  to  go  in  defence 
of  a  friend,  even  when  that  friend  was  so 
thorough-paced  a  blackguard  as  the  unfor- 
tunate Savage. 

By  1747  Johnson  had  acquired  sufficient 
reputation  to  justify  a  syndicate  of  booksellers 

[157] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

in  contracting  with  him  for  the  production  of 
an  EngHsh  Dictionary,  at  that  time  a  great 
desideratum  in  the  language.  On  this  work 
he  spent  in  all  eight  years,  and  its  appearance 
may  be  said  to  have  laid  the  capstone  on  his 
reputation.  As  a  great  lexicographer,  —  the 
title  by  which  he  was  so  often  known  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  —  Johnson  was  disquali- 
fied first  by  his  profound  ignorance  of  all 
other  Germanic  languages  and  even  of  the 
earlier  stages  of  his  own  tongue,  and  secondly 
by  his  constitutional  disinclination  toward  la- 
borious and  minute  research.  On  the  other 
hand,  his  definitions  were  for  the  most  part 
excellent,  although  at  times,  when  his  partisan- 
ship got  the  better  of  his  judgment  and  he 
defined  excise  as  "a  hateful  tax  levied  upon 
commodities  and  adjudged  by  wretches  hired 
by  those  to  whom  excise  is  paid, "  or  a  pen- 
sion as  "pay  given  to  a  State  hireling  for 
treason  to  his  country,"  they  were  calculated 
rather  to  make  the  cynic  laugh  and  the  judi- 

[158] 


The  Personality  of  Dr.  Johnson 

cious  grieve.  Sometimes,  indeed,  a  flash  of 
Johnson's  sturdy  good  humor  and  native  wit 
breaks  through  the  cloud  of  definitions  and 
illustrations  like  a  ray  of  sunshine,  as  where 
he  defines  Grub  Street  as  a  place  "much 
inhabited  by  writers  of  small  histories,  dic- 
tionaries, and  temporary  poems,"  or  a  lexi- 
cographer as  "a  writer  of  dictionaries,  a 
harmless  drudge." 

Johnson  received  the  respectable  sum  of 
nearly  $8,000  for  his  work,  equivalent  in 
purchasing  power  to  perhaps  three  times  the 
amount  to-day.  Out  of  this,  however,  he  had 
to  pay  all  the  expenses  of  preparing  the  book 
for  the  press,  and  long  before  the  work  was 
done  he  had  spent  all  that  he  was  to  receive 
for  it.  His  procrastination  delayed  the  book 
several  years  beyond  the  date  for  which  it  was 
originally  announced  and  completely  exhausted 
the  publishers'  patience.  "Thank  God,  I 
have  done  with  him,"  said  Miller,  the  head  of 
the  syndicate,  when  the  last  sheets  came  in. 

[159] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

"1  am  glad,"  said  Johnson,  when  this  was  re- 
ported to  him,  "that  he  thanks  God  for  any- 
thing." It  is  characteristic  both  of  the  man 
and  the  times  that  within  a  year  after  the  ap- 
pearance of  his  great  work  Johnson  was  ar- 
rested for  debt  and  had  to  be  bailed  out  by  his 
friend,  Samuel  Richardson. 

The  composition  of  the  dictionary  by  no 
means  engrossed  Johnson's  attention  during 
the  eight  years  that  he  was  engaged  upon  it. 
In  1748  he  composed  his  best  known  poem, 
The  Vanity  of  Human  Wishes,  for  which  he 
received  the  trifling  sum  of  fifteen  guineas. 
In  the  following  year,  the  tragedy  of  Irene, 
which  he  had  brought  up  to  London  with  him 
and  which  had  so  far  gone  the  rounds  of  the 
theatres  in  vain,  was  produced  by  his  old 
pupil,  David  Garrick,  now  the  manager  of 
Drury  Lane. 

The  production  could  hardly  be  called 
successful.  The  play  began  amid  cat-calls 
and  whistling,  and  when  the  catastrophe  was 

[160] 


The  Personality  of  Dr.  Johnson 

reached  and  the  unfortunate  heroine  with  the 
bowstring  about  her  neck  opened  her  Ups  for 
her  dying  speech,  the  audience  broke  into  loud 
howls  of  "Murder!  Murder!"  and  drove  her 
silent  from  the  stage.  The  friendly  influence 
of  Garrick,  however,  succeeded  in  keeping  the 
stiff  and  lifeless  play  upon  the  stage  for  nine 
nights,  and  Johnson  received  the  handsome 
profit  of  £300  or  thereabouts,  from  what  was, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  least  valuable  of  all  his 
contributions  to  literature.  The  truth  is  that 
with  all  his  talents  Johnson  utterly  lacked 
dramatic  power.  His  individuality  was  too 
strongly  developed  for  him  to  put  himself  in 
another  man's  place.  Goldsmith  hit  the  nail 
on  the  head  when  he  remarked  to  Johnson: 
"Why,  sir,  if  you  were  to  write  a  fable,  you 
would  make  all  the  little  fishes  talk  like  whales." 
The  author's  great  reputation  induced  some 
friends  to  read  and  even  to  speak  well  of  the 
play;  one.  Pot,  went  so  far  as  to  say  that  it 
was  the  finest  tragedy  of  modern  times;  which 

[161] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

gem  of  criticism  being  reported  to  Johnson 
elicited  the  frank  and  crushing  verdict,  "If 
Pot  says  so,  Pot  hes." 

From  1750  to  1752  Johnson  was  occupied 
with  the  composition  of  the  Rambler,  one  of 
the  countless  eighteenth  century  imitations  of 
the  inimitable  Spectator.  The  style  shows 
Johnson  almost  at  his  worst,  and  his  occasional 
attempts  at  pleasantry  remind  one  painfully 
of  the  gambols  of  a  hippopotamus.  But  its 
stately  orthodoxy  and  its  solemn  moralizings 
on  Johnson's  favorite  theme,  the  vanity  of 
human  wishes,  exactly  suited  the  taste  of  the 
age,  and  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  his  con- 
temporary reputation  as  the  greatest  of  Eng- 
lish moralists  dated  from  the  appearance  of 
the  Rambler. 

The  last  number  of  this  periodical  had 
already  been  written  when  Johnson  lost  his 
wife.  He  was  profoundly  affected  by  her 
death;  "remember  me  in  your  prayers,"  he 
wrote  to  an  old  friend  in  the  first  bitterness 

[162] 


The  Personality  of  Dr.  Johnson 

of  his  grief,  "for  vain  is  the  help  of  man." 
And  his  sorrow  was  no  transient  emotion;  to 
the  end  of  his  hfe  he  observed  the  day  on 
which  his  Tetty  died  as  a  day  of  mourning 
and  of  solemn  devotion  to  her  memory.  The 
prayers  written  down  in  his  diary  on  these 
days  wake,  even  at  this  distance  of  time,  in 
the  most  careless  reader  that  sense  of  fellow- 
ship in  suffering  which  the  old  poet  knew: 
Sunt  lacrimoB  rerum,  et  mentem  mortalia  tan- 
gunt. 

Mrs.  Johnson's  death  would  have  left  her 
husband  alone  in  the  world  had  he  not  already 
begun  to  gather  about  him  a  household  of 
poor,  distressed  creatures  —  blind  Miss  Wil- 
liams, old  Mrs.  Desmoulins  and  her  daughter, 
Polly  Carmichael,  Dr.  Levet,  whose  brutal 
manners  put  even  Johnson  to  the  blush,  and 
the  negro  servant,  Frank,  whose  office  of 
valet  must,  from  all  we  know  of  his  master's 
dress  and  personal  appearance,  have  been  an 
absolute  sinecure.     Not  one  of  these  had  any 

[163] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

claim  upon  Johnson  but  that  of  wretchedness 
and  poverty,  yet  he  turned  over  his  house  to 
them,  hstened  humbly  to  their  quarrels  and 
reproaches,  and  plunged  himself  into  debt  to 
meet  their  wants.  He  even  went  out  himself 
to  purchase  fish  and  oysters  for  his  favorite 
cat,  Hodge,  lest  if  he  should  assign  this  task 
to  any  of  his  dependents,  the  cat  might  be 
disliked  as  a  source  of  trouble  and  mistreated 
in  his  absence.  It  was  well  said  of  the  rough 
old  man  that  he  had  nothing  of  the  bear  about 
him  but  his  skin. 

In  1756  Johnson  began  the  famous  edition 
of  Shakespeare  over  which  he  dawdled  for  the 
next  ten  years.  He  received  money  from 
hundreds  of  subscribers  for  the  projected  work, 
spent  it,  and  did  nothing  till  stung  to  action 
by  a  contemporary  satire  which  roundly 
charged  him  with  dishonesty.  It  is  rather  the 
fashion  nowadays  to  sneer  at  Johnson's  criti- 
cisms of  Shakespeare,  but  when  the  proper 
allowance    is    made   for   Johnson's   time    and 

[  164] 


The  Personality  of  Dr.  Johnson 

temper,  it  is  hard  to  find  a  saner  piece  of  criti- 
cism in  the  EngUsh  language  than  the  preface 
to  this  edition,  or  more  sensible  advice  than 
that  which  he  gives  there  to  the  young  student : 
"Notes  are  often  necessary,  but  they  are 
necessary  evils.  Let  him  that  is  yet  unac- 
quainted with  the  powers  of  Shakespeare,  and 
who  desires  to  feel  the  highest  pleasure  that 
the  drama  can  give,  read  every  play  from  the 
first  scene  to  the  last,  with  utter  negligence  of 
all  his  commentators.  When  his  fancy  is 
once  on  the  wing,  let  it  not  stop  at  correction 
or  explanation.  When  his  attention  is  strongly 
engaged,  let  it  disdain  alike  to  turn  aside  to 
the  name  of  Theobald  and  of  Pope.  Let  him 
read  on  through  brightness  and  obscurity, 
through  integrity  and  corruption;  let  him  pre- 
serve his  comprehension  of  the  dialogue  and 
his  interest  in  the  fable.  And  when  the  pleas- 
ures of  novelty  have  ceased,  let  him  attempt 
exactness  and  read  the  commentators." 

The   Idler,   a  series   of  weekly  essays,   ap- 
[165] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

peared  in  the  Universal  Chronicle  for  the  years 
1758-1760.  We  find  in  these  essays  the  hnk 
which  joins  the  stiff  and  somewhat  pompous 
style  of  the  Rambler  to  the  more  famihar  and 
pleasing  tone  of  the  Lives  of  the  Poets.  In 
some  of  the  papers,  at  least,  we  seem  to  hear 
Johnson  talking  as  he  might  have  talked  at  the 
club.  The  sketch  of  Dick  Minim,  the  per- 
fect type  of  a  neo-classic  critic,  has  several 
humorous  touches  of  self-portraiture;  and 
Johnson's  open-mindedness  is  shown  by  his 
admitting  a  paper  by  his  friend  Langton,  con- 
taining a  kindly,  but  rather  pointed,  reproof 
of  his  own  growing  preference  of  projects  to 
performances. 

Jolmson's  mother  died  in  the  beginning  of 
1759.  As  usual  he  was  in  distress  for  money 
and  had  to  borrow  six  guineas  of  a  printer  to 
make  up  a  sum  which  he  sent  down  to  her  in 
her  illness.  Unable  to  be  with  her  in  her  last 
moments,  he  wrote  her  perhaps  the  most 
tender  and  touching  letter  which  a  son  ever 

[166] 


The  Personality  of  Dr.  Johnson 

sent  to  his  mother,  and  to  provide  for  her 
funeral  expenses  and  pay  the  httle  debts  she 
left  behind,  he  broke  the  spell  which  idleness 
was  weaving  around  him  and  wrote  in  hot 
haste  his  story  of  Rasselas.  This  work  has 
been  absurdly  criticised  as  a  novel;  as  a  matter 
of  fact  it  is  nothing  of  the  kind.  Johnson's 
Abyssinians  make  no  pretence  to  reality;  they 
are  ideal  creatures  in  an  imaginary  country, 
and  the  purpose  of  the  book  is  neither  to  por- 
tray manners  nor  to  delineate  character,  but 
to  teach  a  moral  lesson,  and  to  denounce  the 
favorite  dogma  of  the  day,  that  this  is  the  best 
of  all  possible  worlds.  If  there  was  one  thing 
of  which  Johnson  was  firmly  persuaded,  it 
was  that  this  dogma  was  a  piece  of  cant,  and 
cant  was  the  object  of  his  most  vigorous  de- 
nunciations. The  note  of  the  book  is  struck 
in  the  words  of  Imlac,  the  wise  counselor  of 
Rasselas:  "Human  life  is  everywhere  a  state 
in  which  much  is  to  be  endured,  and  little  to 
be  enjoyed." 

[167] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

In  176-2  George  III,  who  had  newly  come 
to  the  throne,  was  graciously  pleased  to  grant 
Johnson  a  pension  of  £300  a  year,  one  of  the  few 
pubHc  acts  of  His  ^Majesty  which  were  fortunate 
enough  then  and  afterwards  to  meet  with  almost 
universal  approbation.  After  some  hesitation, 
not  unnatural  in  the  author  of  that  definition  of 
a  pension  aheady  cited,  Johnson  accepted  the 
favor.  In  youth  he  had  been  an  ardent  Jacobite, 
and  it  has  even  been  conjectured,  though  prob- 
ably without  a  shadow  of  truth,  that  he  left  Lon- 
don in  1745  to  join  Prince  Charhe's  invasion 
of  England.  But  by  1762  the  Jacobite  cause 
was  merely  the  shadow  of  a  name ;  George  III 
was,  at  least,  a  true-bom  EngUshman,  and 
Johnson's  strong  common  sense  naturally  pre- 
ferred so  substantial  a  reahtv  as  three  hundred 
a  year  to  the  empty  pleasure  of  cursing  the 
House  of  Hanover  and  drinking  King  James's 
health. 

On  the  receipt  of  his  pension,  Johnson 
practically   struck   work.     He   had  yet   more 

[168] 


The  Personality  of  Dr.  Johnson 

than  twenty  years  to  live,  but  with  the  excep- 
tion of  the  Lives  of  the  Poets,  a  work  which  cost 
him  httle  more  time  than  was  involved  in  the 
actual  labor  of  composition,  it  is  doubtful 
whether  he  devoted  more  than  a  few  months 
of  this  period  to  the  practice  of  hterature.  But 
if  he  wrote  httle  he  talked  much.  In  the  year 
after  the  receipt  of  his  pension  he  joined  the 
famous  club  which  met  for  weekly  suppers  at 
the  Turk's  Head  Inn.  In  the  same  year  he 
first  met  BosweU.  And  here  we  may  well 
leave  him;  the  rest  of  his  acts  and  his  words, 
are  they  not  written  in  the  book  of  the  prince 
of  biographers  ? 

The  charm  of  BosweU' s  book  hes  in  its 
lifelike  presentation  of  Johnson's  personahty; 
from  its  pages  the  fascination  which  Johnson 
exercised  over  his  contemporaries  rises  afresh 
to  cast  its  spell  over  us.  In  what  does  the 
secret  of  the  charm  consist  ?  Pari:ly,  no  doubt. 
in  the  strong  common  sense  of  the  man.  We 
are  all  more  or  less  \*ictims  to  cant;  in  one 

[169] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

form  or  another  we  all  pay  tribute  to  the  or- 
ganized hypocrisy  of  society.  But  none  the 
less  we  love  the  man  who  rises  superior  to  the 
conventions,  exposes  their  hoUowness,  and 
laughs  at  the  supposed  necessity  of  their  obh- 
gations.  Again,  the  quick  wit  and  bluff 
heartiness  of  Johnson  are  not  without  their 
share  in  his  attraction.  His  wit  was  not  al- 
ways of  the  most  refined.  His  passages  at 
arms  resemble  cudgel  play  rather  than  a  fen- 
cing match.  But  after  all  the  quarter-staff  is 
to  us  of  the  Enghsh-speaking  race  a  kindlier 
weapon  than  the  rapier.  And  Jolmson  was  a 
past  master  in  the  noble  art  of  giving  hard 
knocks.  "  There  is  no  arguing  with  Johnson," 
said  one  victim,  rubbing,  we  may  imagine, 
his  broken  head,  "for  if  his  pistol  misses  fire, 
he  knocks  you  down  with  the  butt."  And  if 
his  bluffness  was  sometimes  overpowering  to 
his  contemporaries,  it  is  a  source  of  unfailing 
amusement  to  a  later  generation.     "He  hugs 

[170] 


The  Personality  of  Dr.  Johnson 

you  like  a  bear,"  said  Burke,  "and  shakes 
laughter  out  of  you." 

But  if  this  were  all,  Johnson  would  be  merely 
a  comic  figure,  a  sort  of  literary  Sancho  Panza. 
The  secret  of  his  charm  lies  deeper;  there  is  a 
trace  in  him  of  Don  Quixote  as  well.  Like 
that  noble  and  most  pathetic  figure,  Johnson 
was  the  champion  of  a  failing  order,  of  a  cause 
already  lost,  although  he  knew  it  not.  In 
literature,  in  politics,  and  in  religion,  Johnson 
stood  on  the  brink  of  a  revolution,  and  strove 
to  save  his  world  from  plunging  into  what 
seemed  to  him  a  bottomless  abyss.  So  great 
was  his  influence  over  the  English  world  of  his 
day  that  he  actually  succeeded  in  delaying 
the  advent  of  that  revolution.  To  avert  it 
was  beyond  human  power,  but  there  is  some- 
thing irresistibly  appealing  in  the  sight  of  a 
brave  man  fighting  a  losing  battle. 

Finally,  I  think,  the  fascination  of  Johnson 
is  due  to  that  delight  which  human  nature 
always  experiences  in  discovering  a  treasure 

[171] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

hidden  beneath  a  repeUing  exterior.  There 
is  much  about  Johnson  that  is  repellant  — 
not  merely  the  scarred  face,  the  uncouth  man- 
ners, and  the  slovenly  dress,  but  the  narrow- 
ness, the  dogmatism,  the  arrogance,  passing 
at  times  almost  into  brutality.  But  all  this  is 
on  the  surface,  the  hard  crust  through  which  we 
must  break  to  reach  the  hidden  ore.  And  the 
ore  is  rich  in  the  noblest  qualities  of  manhood 
—  courage,  courtesy,  wisdom,  and  love. 


[172] 


"The 
Frugal  Note  of  Gray" 

THE  fame  of  Gray  is  a  unique  phenome- 
non in  English  Hterature;  assuredly  it 
rests  upon  the  narrowest  of  foundations. 
During  his  lifetime  he  condescended  to  pub- 
lish exactly  a  dozen  poems,  and  the  barrenness 
of  his  productive  powers  may  be  measured 
by  the  fact  that  when  to  these  poems  there 
are  added  all  that  the  diligence  of  successive 
editors  has  been  able  to  collect,  school  ex- 
ercises, fragments  in  English  and  Latin, 
trifling  satiric  skits,  and  rejected  stanzas,  the 
whole  occupies  something  less  than  two  hun- 
dred pages  in  the  most  elaborate  edition  of 
his  works.  This  is  but  a  petty  harvest  for  a 
life  of  fifty  years  of  unbroken  leisure,  and 
yet  it  is  no  paradox  to  say  that  the  security 

[173] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

of  Gray's  fame  is  in  inverse  proportion  to 
the  scantiness  of  his  production.  There  is 
no  poem  in  our  language  —  not  Hamlet  nor 
Paradise  Lost  —  which  is  surer  of  wide- 
spread and  enduring  popularity  than  The 
Elegy  in  a  Country  Churchyard.  The  time 
may  perhaps  come  when  Shakespeare  and 
Milton  will  be  as  little  understood  or  loved 
as  they  were  in  Gray's  youth.  But  so  long 
as  the  English  language  is  spoken  or  read, 
Gray's  masterpiece  will  continue  to  fill  the 
place  in  the  minds  and  hearts  of  men  that  it 
took  upon  its  first  appearance  and  has  held 
since  then  for  a  century  and  a  half.  And  this 
for  the  simple  reason  that  there  is  no  one 
poem  in  English,  nor  perhaps  in  any  modern 
language,  which  is  at  once  so  universal  in  its 
appeal,  so  perfect  and  yet  so  simple  in  its 
form.  And  the  immortality  of  the  Elegy  en- 
sures, we  may  well  believe,  a  like  happy  fate 
to  the  handful  of  lyrics  which  cluster  round  it. 
The  problem  of  Gray,  if  we  may  so  call  it, 
[174] 


''The  Frugal  Note  of  Graif 

is  to  account  for  this  discrepancy  between  the 
quantity  and  the  quaHty  of  his  work.  There 
is,  of  course,  no  necessary  connection  between 
these  two.  Yet,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  in  Eng- 
hsh  Hterature,  at  least,  the  great  poets  have 
as  a  rule  been  prolific  poets  as  well.  And 
where  the  contrary  has  been  the  case  the  fact 
is  generally  capable  of  a  very  simple  explana- 
tion; straitened  circumstances,  the  pressure 
of  other  interests  and  duties,  or  early  death, 
has  limited  or  cut  short  the  poet's  work.  But 
none  of  these  explanations  are  available  in 
the  case  of  Gray. 

Matthew  Arnold  in  a  famous  essay  has 
attempted  what  may  be  called  the  objective 
explanation.  Gray,  a  born  poet,  he  says,  fell 
unhappily  upon  an  age  of  prose;  he  was  iso- 
lated in  his  century;  the  want  of  a  genial  at- 
mosphere, the  failure  of  sympathy  in  his 
contemporaries,  prevented  him  from  develop- 
ing and  flowering  as  he  would  have  done  in 
a  happier  time.     "  He  iiever  spoke  out."     This 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

little  phrase,  caught  from  a  letter  of  a  friend 
of  Gray's  and  meaning,  in  truth,  nothing 
more  than  that  he  had  never  told  his  friends 
how  near  his  end  was,  becomes  in  Arnold's 
hands  a  magic  formula  by  the  frequent  repeti- 
tion of  which  he  calls  up  a  vision  of  Gray  as 
an  unfortunate  being,  gifted  with  all  the  quali- 
ties that  go  to  make  a  poet,  but  blasted  by 
the  east  wind  of  a  barren  and  prosaic  age. 
It  need  hardly  be  said  that  this  vision  is 
wholly  the  product  of  the  critic's  imagination. 
In  the  first  place,  prosaic  as  the  mid-eighteenth 
century  was,  it  had  the  wit  to  recognize  the 
greatness  of  so  rare  and  lofty  a  poet  as  Gray. 
The  Elegy  went  through  four  editions  in 
two  months;  the  Pindaric  Odes  were  received 
with  a  chorus  of  wondering  applause  which 
roused  the  bitter  wrath  of  Samuel  Johnson. 
Gray  was  the  only  true  poet  of  his  century 
who  was  honored  by  the  offer  of  the  laureate- 
ship.  And  even  had  it  been  otherwise  he  was 
not  the  man  to  be  struck  dumb  by  the  in- 

[176] 


'■'■The  Frugal  Note  of  Gray'''' 

difference  of  the  public,  for  he  was  himself 
wholly  indifferent  to  public  praise  or  blame. 
His  first  and  last  poems  alike  appeared  anony- 
mously. He  consented  to  the  publication  of 
the  Pindaric  Odes  to  please  his  friend,  Wal- 
pole,  and  only  permitted  Dodsley  to  print 
the  Elegy  —  and  that  without  his  name  upon 
the  title-page  —  because  he  learned  that  the 
manuscript  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  a 
pirate  printer  who  was  already  setting  it  in 
type.  He  does  not  seem  to  have  been  espe- 
cially elated  by  the  popularity  of  the  Elegy, 
and  he  laughed  good-naturedly  at  the  charge 
of  obscurity  which  was  at  times  brought 
against  his  odes.  It  would  be  hard,  I  think, 
to  find  another  English  poet  who  so  serenely 
and  sincerely  disregarded  contemporary  opinion 
as  Thomas  Gray. 

A  later  and  less  fanciful  student  of  Gray's 
fife  and  work,  Professor  Phelps,  attributes 
the  poet's  limited  production  to  three  causes, 
his  scholarly  temper,  his  bad  health,  and  liis 

[177] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

dignified  reserve.  This,  it  seems  to  me,  is 
distinctly  a  more  reasonable  explanation, 
since  it  seeks  the  cause  not  in  the  character 
of  the  world  surrounding  the  poet,  but  in  the 
man  himself.  And  yet  I  am  inclined  to  doubt 
whether  any  of  these  causes,  or  all  of  them 
combined,  satisfactorily  account  for  Gray's 
sterility.  The  long  disease  of  Pope's  life  did 
not  check  his  creative  power,  nor  did  the 
dignified  reserve  of  Tennyson's  character 
prevent  his  becoming  one  of  the  most  produc- 
tive of  English  poets.  The  later  years  of 
Milton  were  marked  by  the  presence  of  all  of 
these  supposed  causes  of  poetic  barrenness, 
yet  these  years  gave  birth  to  Paradise  Lost, 
Paradise  Regained,  and  Samson  Agonistes. 
The  truth,  I  believe,  lies  somewhat  deeper. 
Professor  Phelps,  like  Matthew  Arnold,  as- 
sumes, perhaps  too  hastily,  the  presence  in 
Gray  of  rich  productive  powers  which  were 
checked  by  certain  temperamental  and  physi- 
cal causes.     But  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that 

[178] 


I 


''The  Frugal  Note  of  Gray'' 

Gray  at  once  spoke  the  simple  truth  and  told 
the  whole  story  when  he  said  to  Walpole:  "If 
I  do  not  write  much,  it  is  because  I  cannot." 
In  other  words  he  said  little,  because  he  had 
but  little  power  of  speech. 

In  his  ingenious  analysis  of  the  character 
of  Gray,  Matthew  Arnold  has  pointed  out 
accurately  enough  his  qualities  of  learning, 
penetration,  seriousness,  sentiment,  and  hu- 
mor. But  when  the  critic  goes  on  to  affirm 
that  these  qualities  constitute  the  equipment 
and  endowment  for  the  office  of  poet,  one  de- 
clines to  follow  him.  It  would  not  be  difficult, 
I  fancy,  to  discover  the  presence  of  all  these 
qualities  in  the  character  of  Gray's  contem- 
porary, Samuel  Johnson.  Yet,  so  far  as  I 
know,  no  one  has  yet  discovered  in  the  auto- 
crat of  the  Literary  Club  a  great  poet  blighted 
by  an  unfavorable  environment  or  limited  by 
scholarly  habits  and  ill  health. 

The  truth  is  that  these  qualities  are  mere 
accidents,  by  no  means  essential  to  the  mak- 

[179] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

ing  of  a  poet.  Shakespeare  lacked  learning, 
Wordsworth  critical  penetration,  Chaucer  high 
seriousness,  Dryden  sentiment,  and  Milton 
humor.  The  true  essentials  of  a  poet,  though 
perhaps  seldom  found  united  and  in  their  full 
power  in  a  single  individual,  are  profound 
reflection,  vivid  emotion,  and  far-reaching 
sympathy,  combined  with  an  irresistible  ten- 
dency to  expression  and  a  mastery,  inborn  or 
acquired,  of  metrical  form.  Gray  was,  no 
doubt,  a  master  of  form.  But  he  lacked  al- 
most entirely  the  born  poet's  creative  im- 
pulse. It  was  not  only  that  he  dallied  over 
his  work  —  it  took  him  three  years  to  write 
the  Bard  —  or  laid  it  aside  for  other  things 
as  he  laid  aside  the  Elegy  for  seven  years;  but 
as  his  letters  and  journals  show,  he  had  abun- 
dance of  sentiment,  humor,  and  satire  which 
he  seldom  or  never  felt  the  desire  to  express 
in  verse. 

Perhaps  the  most  striking  instance  of  this 
poetic  reticence  of  Gray  appears  in  his  feel- 

[180] 


''The  Frugal  Note  of  Gray'' 

ing  for  nature.  It  has  been  well  said  that 
Gray  is  the  first  English  writer  to  exhibit  that 
love  of  nature,  particularly  in  her  wilder  and 
more  sohtary  moods,  which  dominates  so 
much  of  modern  poetry.  In  his  youth  he 
was  profoundly  affected  by  his  first  sight  of 
the  Alps.  He  wrote  to  his  friend  West,  for 
example:  "In  our  little  journey  up  to  the 
Grande  Chartreuse,  I  do  not  remember  to 
have  gone  ten  paces  without  an  exclamation 
that  there  was  no  restraining.  Not  a  precipice, 
not  a  torrent,  not  a  cliff,  but  is  pregnant  with 
religion  and  poetry."  This  is  wholly  in  the  * 
manner  of  Wordsworth,  but  the  creative  poetic 
impulse  moved  Wordsworth  to  write  Tinturn 
Abbey,  whereas  the  only  record  of  Gray's 
feelings,  apart  from  incidental  references  in 
letters,  is  found  in  a  few  Latin  verses  written 
in  the  album  of  the  Grande  Chartreuse.  We 
must  not  be  too  severe  upon  Gray  for  his 
choice  of  a  dead  language;  Latin  verse  was 
to  him  at  that  time,  no  doubt,  an  easier  and 

[181] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

more  natural  medium  than  English.  But  it 
is  none  the  less  remarkable  that  this  should 
be  his  sole  expression.  Later  in  life  he  visited 
the  Scottish  Highlands,  and  discovered  the 
English  Lake  Country,  but  by  this  time  his 
tendency  toward  expression  had  become  atro- 
phied by  long  disuse.  The  Journal  in  the 
Lakes  is  delightful  reading,  but  after  all  it  is 
prose  not  poetry;  and  even  the  Journal  would 
never  have  been  written,  had  the  friend  for 
whom  it  was  composed  been  able  to  fulfil  his 
intention  of  accompanying  Gray  on  the  tour. 
But  even  if  Gray  had  been  endowed  with 
the  impulse  to  expression,  the  question  re- 
mains whether  he  did  not  lack  other  essential 
qualities  of  the  great  poet.  A  capacity  for 
profound  reflection  Gray  assuredly  had  not. 
His  learning  is  undisputed;  but  learning  ac- 
quired in  Gray's  fashion,  merely  to  occupy  the 
tedious  hours  of  a  life  without  purpose,  learn- 
ing that  is  never  employed  or  put  to  any  prac- 
tical use,  is  apt  to  hinder  rather  than  to  help 

[182] 


''The  Frugal  Note  of  Gray'' 

the  habit  of  reflection.  The  observations  on 
Aristotle,  Froissart,  and  Shakespeare  which 
Arnold  cites  as  evidence  of  Gray's  power  to 
use  his  learning  are  excellent  of  their  kind. 
But  they  are  critical  dicta  and  nothing  more. 
And  no  one  should  have  known  better  than 
Matthew  Arnold  the  difference  between  the 
critical  and  the  creative  faculties.  It  is  not  by 
framing  critical  dicta,  however  sincere,  acute, 
and  well-turned  they  may  be,  that  a  scholar 
fits  himself  for  the  office  of  a  poet.  On  the 
great  problems  of  human  life  and  destiny. 
Gray,  if  we  may  trust  the  double  testimony 
of  his  letters  and  his  poems,  does  not  seem  to 
have  thought  at  all.  His  religious  belief  was 
sincere,  but  wholly  conventional.  He  enter- 
tained a  deep  distrust  of  the  destructive  skepti- 
cism of  Voltaire  and  Hume,  but  he  cherished 
an  almost  equally  profound  dislike  of  the 
great  contemporary  champion  of  orthodoxy, 
Dr.  Johnson.  The  former  shocked  his  re- 
ligious,   the    latter    his    aesthetic    sensibilities. 

[183] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

He  lived  on  the  verge  of  the  great  revolutionary 
movement  which  was  to  remodel  the  forms 
of  society,  government,  and  intellectual  life  in 
the  Western  world,  without  in  the  least  realiz- 
ing the  impending  deluge.  He  read  the  works 
of  Rousseau,  the  great  forerunner  of  that 
movement,  "heavily,  heavily,"  contrasting 
them,  no  doubt  to  their  disadvantage,  with 
the  elegant  romances  of  Crebillon  and  Mari- 
vaux.  And  if  we  would  have  a  striking  instance 
of  the  extent  to  which  this  absence  of  the  capac- 
ity for  profound  reflection  impairs  the  poetry 
of  Gray,  we  have  but  to  place  his  Hymn  to 
Adversity,  with  all  its  pomp  of  poetic  phrase- 
ology, beside  that  noblest  of  Wordsworth's 
odes  which  "assigns  to  the  guardianship  of 
duty  or  everlasting  law  the  fragrance  of  the 
flowers  on  earth  and  the  splendor  of  the  stars 
in  heaven."  In  form,  and  to  a  certain  extent 
in  diction  also,  Wordsworth's  Ode  to  Duty  is 
modelled  upon  Gray's  Hymn.  But  what  a 
difference    in    the    content    of    these    poems! 

[  184] 


''The  Frugal  Note  of  Gray'' 

Duty  was  the  guiding  star  of  Wordsworth's 
life;  the  reconciUation  of  the  inevitable  claims 
of  duty  with  the  natural  human  desire  for 
happiness  was  the  goal  toward  which  his 
ethical  thinking  was  directed.  To  Gray,  on 
the  other  hand,  Adversity  was  a  mere  ab- 
straction, a  literary  lay  figure  on  which  to 
hang  a  rich,  embroidered  robe  of  verse.  It  is 
absurd  to  suppose  that  at  the  time  when  the 
Hymn  was  written,  or  indeed  at  any  time  in 
his  quiet  cloistered  life.  Gray  had  realized  by 
experience  the  true  meaning  of  the  word. 
And  as  a  natural  result  the  thought  of  the 
Hymn,  when  severed  from  its  form,  is  a  mere 
series  of  commonplaces. 

In  dealing  with  Gray's  capacity  for  emotion 
we  are,  I  believe,  on  somewhat  more  uncer- 
tain ground.  There  is,  indeed,  little  evidence 
of  this  capacity  in  his  poems.  If  these  were 
all  that  remained  to  testify  of  the  character 
of  Gray,  we  might  believe  him,  as  comparative 
strangers  in  his  lifetime  believed  him,  a  man 

[185] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

of  cold,  haughty,  and  fastidious  temperament. 
But  the  known  facts  of  his  Hfe  contradict  such 
a  judgment.  We  know  of  Gray's  devotion 
to  his  widowed  mother,  of  his  affection  for  his 
aunts,  —  always  excepting  one  "old  Harridan, 
the  Spawn  of  Cerberus  and  the  Dragon  of 
Wantley, "  —  of  his  tender  love  for  West,  the 
friend  of  his  youth,  of  his  strong  and  long- 
continued  friendship  with  Walpole,  Mason, 
and  Wharton,  of  the  almost  romantic  warmth 
of  his  feeling  for  Norton  Nichols  and  Bon- 
stetten,  the  young  friends  whose  intimacy 
lightened  the  gloom  of  his  advancing  years. 
It  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  Gray  had  a 
genius  for  friendship.  Certainly  those  who 
penetrated  behind  the  veil  of  his  reserve  and 
knew  the  man  himself  loved  him  as  few  Eng- 
hsh  poets  have  been  loved.  And  yet,  when 
all  is  said,  we  must  still  believe  that  Gray's 
emotional  life  was  at  least  as  calm  as  it  was 
deep.  He  had  not  the  capacity  for  strong, 
lively,  and  passionate  feeling  that  marks  the 

[186] 


''The  Frugal  Note  of  Gray"' 

poet  of  the  first  order.  It  seems  plain  that 
he  never  knew  what  it  was  to  love  a  woman. 
Certainly  his  sedate  flirtation  with  Miss  Speed 
cannot  be  dignified  with  the  name  of  love. 
It  seems  equally  plain  that  he  never  hated  any 
one  with  that  fiery  personal  hatred  that  has 
so  often  spurred  a  poet  on  to  give  utterance  to 
his  feelings  in  words  that  still  glow  with  the 
intense  heat  in  which  they  were  first  conceived. 
Gray  could  neither  love  like  Burns  and  Shelley, 
nor  hate  like  Pope  and  Byron.  Even  where 
he  felt  deeply,  as  in  his  relations  to  his  friends, 
he  seems  to  have  laid  the  ban  of  a  gentle  and 
dignified  reserve  upon  any  expression  of  his 
feelings.  His  gentle  and  kindly  letters  seldom 
or  never  betray  the  presence  of  any  strong 
emotion.  Only  once  in  his  life  did  the  mingled 
passion  of  love  and  sorrow,  of  hopeless  long- 
ing for  the  days  that  are  no  more,  impel  him 
irresistibly  to  utterance  in  verse.  And  the 
one  poem  that  issued  from  this  rare  mood 
Gray  carefully  hid   away  among  his  papers 

[187] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

where  it  was  discovered  only  after  his  death. 
In  the  Sonnet  on  the  Death  of  West  we  hear 
for  the  sole  time  in  Gray's  works  the  lyrical 
cry  that  marks  the  presence  in  the  poet  of  in- 
tense and  overmastering  emotion: 

"The  fields  to  all  their  wonted  tribute  bear; 
To  warm  their  Httle  loves  the  birds  complain; 
I  fruitless  mourn  to  him  that  cannot  hear. 
And  weep  the  more  because  I  weep  in  vain." 

We  may  say  of  these  lines  what  Gray's  harshest 
critic  has  said  of  a  famous  passage  in  the 
Elegy:  "Had  Gray  written  often  thus,  it  had 
been  vain  to  blame  and  useless  to  praise  him." 
But  Gray  did  not  write  often  thus.  On  the 
contrary,  as  he  advanced  in  Hfe  he  more  and 
more  resolutely  denied  himself  the  utterance 
of  his  feelings  even  in  the  privacy  of  conversa- 
tion with  his  friends.  Bonstetten  complained 
that  although  he  himself  poured  out  his  heart 
to  the  poet  and  made  him  the  partner  of  his 
hopes,  his  desires,  and  his  enthusiasms.  Gray 
never  returned  the  confidence.     "  His  life  was 

[188] 


''The  Frugal  Note  of  Gray"' 

a  sealed  book  to  me;  he  never  would  talk  of 
himself,  never  allow  me  to  speak  to  him  of  his 
poetry.  If  I  quoted  lines  of  his  to  him,  he 
kept  silence  like  an  obstinate  child."  That 
Gray  fully  returned  the  warmth  of  Bon- 
stetten's  affection  we  have  abundant  proof, 
and  the  poet  seems  himself  to  have  realized 
and  regretted  the  bar  to  the  free  communion 
of  soul  which  his  long  habit  of  reserve  and  re- 
pression imposed  upon  him.  "I  know,  and 
have  too  often  felt,"  he  writes  to  his  young 
friend,  "  the  disadvantages  I  lay  myself  under, 
how  much  I  hurt  the  little  interest  I  have  in 
you,  by  this  air  of  sadness  .  .  .  but  sure  you 
will  forgive  though  you  cannot  sympathize 
with  me."  Gray's  capacity  for  the  expression 
of  his  feelings  in  fact  had  by  this  time  become 
as  impossible  in  social  intercourse  as  it  had 
been  long  before  in  poetry.  Gray  was  not  an 
old  man  when  he  died,  but  his  period  of  pro- 
duction had  ceased  with  the  completion  of  the 
Bard  fourteen  years  before  his  death.     And  as 

[189] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

regards  the  expression  of  personal  feeling,  it  is 
not  too  much  to  say  that  his  last  utterance  is 
contained  in  the  closing  stanzas  of  the  Elegy 
written  some  seven  years  before  the  Bard. 
Neither  that  poem  nor  its  companion  piece, 
the  Progress  of  Poesy,  shows  the  slightest  trace 
of  the  quality  of  emotion,  which  is  generally 
considered  essential  to  the  true  lyric.  And 
since  it  is  upon  these  poems  that  the  fame  of 
Gray  as  a  lyric  poet  mainly  depends,  we  seem 
to  arrive  at  the  perhaps  startling  conclusion 
that  he  was  not  in  the  true  sense  of  the 
word  a  lyric  poet.  And  certainly,  unless  in 
the  category  of  the  lyric  a  place  can  be  found 
for  the  expression  of  lofty  thought  in  stately 
language  and  harmonious  rhythm,  regardless 
of  the  quality  of  emotion,  Gray's  claims  as  a 
lyrist  must  be  denied. 

There  is  no  need,  I  think,  of  elaborate 
argument  to  show  the  limited  extent  of  Gray's 
sympathies.  It  has  been  generally  admitted 
that  his  life  of  the  cloister  shut  him  off  from 

[190] 


''The  Frugal  Note  of  Gray 


»» 


all  active  interest  in  the  affairs  of  men.  It  has 
not,  however,  been  so  generally  recognized 
that  this  life  was  Gray's  deliberate  choice.  At 
the  age  of  twenty-six  Gray  had  finished  his 
education  and  had  made  the  grand  tour;  he 
was  his  own  master,  in  possession  of  a  small 
but  sufiicient  income,  free  from  any  embarrass- 
ment of  family  ties.  The  world  was  all  be- 
fore him  where  to  choose,  and  he  chose  Cam- 
bridge, that  "silly,  dirty  place"  where  he  had 
spent  four  miserable  years  as  an  undergradu- 
ate. The  intellectual  life  of  the  university 
was  at  its  lowest  ebb;  over  her  ancient  walls 
brooded  the  spirit  of  Laziness,  "our  sovereign 
lady  and  mistress,  president  of  presidents  and 
head  of  heads,"  as  Gray  calls  her  in  one  of  his 
humorous  and  futile  outbursts  of  revolt 
against  her  power.  Gray  did  not  return  to 
Cambridge  to  study  for  any  profession,  nor 
did  he  assume  any  share  in  the  responsibilities 
and  duties  of  academic  life.  It  was  not,  in- 
deed, until  a  few  years  before  his  death  that 

[191] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

he  had  any  official  connection  with  the  uni- 
versity. He  seems  simply  to  have  fled  to 
Cambridge  as  to  a  refuge  from  a  world  in 
which  he  had  few  friends  and  no  interests. 
It  cannot,  I  think,  be  maintained  that  Gray 
gained  anything  by  this  flight  from  the  worid. 
Had  he  plunged  like  Johnson  into  the  turmoil 
of  London  life,  he  would  have  emerged,  per- 
haps a  sadder,  but  certainly  a  wiser  man. 
Had  he  hved  on  at  Stoke  Pogis  in  the  society 
of  his  mother  and  his  aunts,  renewed  his 
friendship  with  Walpole.  cultivated  the  ac- 
quaintance of  such  neighbors  as  Lady  Cob- 
ham  and  Miss  Speed,  and  continued  to  work 
the  vein  of  true  poetry  that  had  already  dis- 
closed itself  in  his  mind,  he  would  certainly 
have  been  a  happier  man.  As  it  was,  Gray's 
removal  to  Cambridge  marks  an  abrupt  check 
in  his  poetic  production:  he  laid  aside  the 
half-completed  Elegy,  stammered  out  a  few 
lines  expressive  of  his  loathing  for  the  aca- 
demic atmosphere  in  the  fragmentary  Hymn 

[19^] 


^'The  Frugal  Note  of  Gray" 

to  Ignorance,  and  then  relapsed  into  silence 
for  five  years,  when  he  emerged  just  long 
enough  to  write  the  delightful  ode  on  the 
death  of  Walpole's  cat.  From  the  composi- 
tion of  poetry  Gray  turned  to  those  studies 
classical,  archaeological,  and  aesthetic  which 
were  henceforth  to  occupy  so  much  of  his  life. 
They  were  fruitless  studies,  so  far  at  least  as 
any  direct  issue  was  concerned.  Xo  edition 
of  a  Greek  classic,  no  treatise  on  Gx)thic  archi- 
tecture, no  history  of  English  poetry,  ever 
came  from  Gray's  pen.  And  in  spite  of  the 
various  plans  for  works  of  this  sort  that  he 
formed  and  abandoned  one  after  the  other, 
we  may  well  beUeve  that  he  devoted  himself 
to  study  not  for  the  sake  of  producing  anything, 
but  with  the  hope  of  dispelling  the  ennui  that 
hung  so  hea\'ily  about  his  first  years  at  Cam- 
bridge, and,  it  may  be,  also  of  drugging  his 
mind  against  too  painful  reflections  on  what 
might  have  been. 

In  time,  however.  Gray  accommodated  him- 
[193] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

self  fairly  well  to  the  unbroken  monotony  of 
this  life.  He  removed  from  Peterhouse,  where 
he  had  been  disturbed  by  the  rude  pranks  of 
"buckish"  undergraduates,  to  the  more  con- 
genial society  of  his  old  college,  Pembroke. 
He  adorned  his  rooms  with  old  books,  fresh 
flowers,  and  Japanese  vases.  He  amused  his 
leisure  by  thrumming  on  the  harpsichord, 
wandered  through  the  quiet  fields  about  Cam- 
bridge, and  noted  with  the  eye  and  ear  of  a 
born  lover  of  nature  the  blossoming  of  the 
first  flowers  and  the  song  of  the  first  return- 
ing birds.  He  indulged  himself  in  vacation 
time  with  "Lilliputian  journeys"  about  Eng- 
land, visiting  with  special  delight  the  noble 
cathedrals  whose  Gothic  architecture  he  was, 
perhaps,  the  first  man  of  his  age  to  appreciate 
at  its  true  worth.  And  he  wrote  voluminously 
to  the  few  friends  in  whose  correspondence  he 
found  that  social  intercourse  which  the  cir- 
cumstances of  his  life  and  liis  own  reticence 
of  speech  denied  him  at  first  hand.     He  even 

[  194] 


''The  Frugal  Note  of  Gray'' 

accepted  a  position  as  Professor  of  Modern 
History  and  Letters  in  the  university.  He  de- 
livered no  lectures,  to  be  sure,  but  none  of  his 
predecessors  had  done  so  since  the  chair  was 
founded,  and  although  his  conscience  troubled 
him  at  times  for  this  compliance  with  aca- 
demic etiquette,  he  never  ventured  to  violate  it. 
From  beginning  to  end  he  remained  consistent 
in  his  position  as  an  onlooker  rather  than  a 
participant  in  university  life. 

Nor  was  Gray  less  the  onlooker  at  the 
world  of  public  affairs.  It  is  a  mistake  to 
think  of  his  age  as  dull.  It  witnessed  the  last 
hopeless  attempt  to  restore  the  Stuarts  to  their 
old  throne,  it  saw  the  last  struggle  in  England 
between  representative  institutions  and  the 
monarchy.  Abroad  it  saw  the  foundation 
of  the  English  empire  in  India,  the  final 
triumph  of  England  over  her  old  rival  for  the 
mastery  of  the  New  World,  and  the  glorious 
battle  of  Frederick  the  Great  single  handed 
against  the  power  of  allied  Europe.     But  for 

[195] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

all  these  great  events  Gray  had  only  the  in- 
terest of  the  placid  citizen  who  finds  in  the 
perusal  of  his  daily  paper  a  pleasant  distraction 
from  the  monotony  of  his  life.  "We  talk  of 
war,  famine,  and  pestilence,"  he  writes,  re- 
ferring to  himself  and  his  Cambridge  asso- 
ciates, "with  no  more  apprehension  than  of  a 
broken  head,  or  of  a  coach  overturned  be- 
tween York  and  Edinburgh."  And  Gray's 
interest  in  personalities  was  little  stronger  than 
his  sympathy  with  great  causes.  He  pitied 
the  "poor  King  of  Prussia,"  admired  Pitt, 
and  despised  that  "  fizzling  old  owl,"  the  Duke 
of  Newcastle;  but  had  Pitt  betrayed  his  coun- 
try or  Frederick  taken  poison,  Gray,  one  be- 
Heves,  would  none  the  less  have  sat  down 
calmly  to  his  nice  dinner  and  drunk  his  two 
glasses  of  sweet  wine  before  expressing  his 
feelings  over  such  untoward  events  in  a  Avell- 
turned  phrase  of  a  letter  to  Mason  or  Wharton. 
Such,  surely,  is  not  the  stuff  of  which  great 
poets  are  made.    It  would  be  absurd,  of  course, 

[196] 


''The  Frugal  Note  of  Gray 


?> 


to  expect  in  a  retired  scholar  like  Gray  the  all- 
embracing  human  sympathy  of  Chaucer  or  of 
Shakespeare;  but  it  is  hard  to  refrain  from 
comparing  Gray's  indifference  with  the  love 
of  liberty,  the  hatred  of  tyranny,  the  passion 
of  patriotism  which  glowed  in  the  hearts  of 
Milton,  Wordsworth,  and  Tennyson,  poets  by 
nature  as  little  men  of  the  world  as  Gray 
himself. 

Such  seem  to  me  to  be  the  causes  which 
underlie  and  account  for  the  scanty  product 
of  Gray's  muse.  Under  the  happiest  of  cir- 
cumstances he  might,  perhaps,  have  some- 
what increased  the  quantity  of  his  verse. 
Under  no  imaginable  circumstances,  being 
what  he  was,  could  he  have  altered  its  quality. 
And  what  was  he  ?  When  one  subtracts  from 
Gray  those  essentials  to  a  great  poet  which 
he  seems  undoubtedly  to  have  lacked,  what 
remains  ?  Enough,  at  least,  to  constitute  him 
one  of  the  finest  artists  in  verse  that  glorify 
our  literature.     His  diction  is  impeccable.     By 

[197] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

long  and  toilsome  labor  he  wrought  the  fabric 
of  his  verse  into  something  as  near  perfection 
as  is  permitted  to  mortals.  It  is  not  too  much, 
I  think,  to  say  that  in  the  rare  and  happy 
union  of  simplicity  and  beauty  Gray's  Elegy 
is  unmatched  in  modern  times.  And  his  ear 
for  rhythm  was  as  fine  as  his  sense  of  language 
was  true.  To  match  the  lofty  music  of  his 
odes  with  their  interwoven  harmonies,  their 
pauses  and  prolongations,  one  must  go  back 
to  Milton,  or  come  down  to  Coleridge  and 
Shelley.  Finally  Gray  possessed  what  is  per- 
haps a  rarer  gift  than  feeling  for  language  or 
ear  for  rhythm,  the  constructive  power.  His 
poems  are  not  compositions  in  which  an  occa- 
sional happy  thought  or  striking  image  atones 
for  much  that  is  commonplace  or  superfluous. 
They  are  organic  wholes.  They  spring  up, 
run  their  destined  course,  and  come  to  their 
proper  close  with  something  of  that  inevitable 
character  that  attends  the  phenomena  of  na- 
ture.    Not  a  stanza,  not  a  line,  but  has  its 

[198] 


'■'The  Frugal  Note  of  Gray 


»» 


function,  its  operant  power,  in  the  scheme  of 
the  whole.  And  this  is  due  to  the  fact  that 
Gray  was  not  only  a  poet,  but  one  of  the 
severest  of  critics.  What  other  poet  in  our 
history  would  have  discarded  from  the  Elegy, 
for  the  sole  reason  that  it  formed  too  long  a 
parenthesis,  such  an  exquisite  quatrain  as  this: 

"  There  scatter' d  oft,  the  earliest  of  the  year. 
By  hands  unseen  are  showers  of  violets  found ; 
The  redbreast  loves  to  build  and  warble  there. 
And  little  footsteps  lightly  print  the  ground." 

This  artistic  merit  of  Gray's  work  deserves, 
moreover,  special  recognition  in  view  of  the 
fact  that  the  age  in  which  he  lived  was  wholly 
dominated  by  what  may  be  called  the  mechani- 
cal theory  of  verse.  Dryden,  to  borrow 
Lowell's  phrase,  had  "taught  the  trick  of 
cadences  that  made  the  manufacture  of  verses 
more  easy."  Pope  brought  this  handicraft 
to  its  highest  perfection;  and  Pope's  successors 
got  the  trick  by  heart.  Regularity,  uniformity, 
precision,  and  balance  became,  as  Arnold  has 

[199] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

pointed  out,  the  dominant  characteristics  of 
eighteenth  century  verse;  and  the  prevaiUng 
form  of  that  verse,  the  heroic  couplet  as 
written  by  Dry  den  and  Pope,  was  exactly  the 
form  wliich  gave  fullest  expression  to  these 
characteristics  and  denied  expression  to  the 
higher  and  truer  qualities  of  poetry.  Gray, 
who  began  to  write  before  the  death  of  Pope 
and  who  died  before  the  reaction  against 
Pope's  theory  and  practice  was  well  under 
way,  was  exposed  to  the  full  force  of  this 
mechanical  system.  Yet  he  was  practically 
unaffected  by  it.  Two  of  his  poems,  indeed. 
The  Hymn  to  Ignorance  and  the  Alliance  of 
Education  and  Government,  may  fairly  be  said 
to  belong  to  the  school  of  Pope.  But  both  are 
fragments,  thrown  aside,  probably,  because 
Gray  felt  that  his  genius  moved  heavily  in  the 
harness  of  this  school.  And  both  these  frag- 
ments can  be  subtracted  from  the  scanty 
total  of  Gray's  work  without  at  all  impairing 
the  measure  of  his  fame.     Like  the  shepherd 

[200] 


(( 


The  Frugal  Note  of  Gray'' 


boy  who  refused  the  armor  of  the  king,  Gray  won 
his  victories  by  disregarding  the  accepted  rules. 
But  Gray  was  something  more  than  an 
artist  in  verse.  He  was  a  true,  if  not  a  great 
poet.  He  had  what  no  other  writer  of  his  day, 
with  the  one  exception  of  the  ill-fated  Collins, 
possessed,  a  real  gift  of  song.  In  an  age  when 
the  would-be  poet  turned  as  a  matter  of  course 
to  satire  and  didacticism,  Gray  shook  out  from 
time  to  time  a  lyric  note  as  pure  and  sweet  as 
that  of  a  song  bird.  Such  a  note  was  not 
always  at  his  command.  He  indulged  too 
often  in  stately  and  sonorous  rhetoric.  The 
admired  opening  of  the  Bard,  for  example,  is 
splendid  declamation  rather  than  song.  But 
what  other  poet  of  his  day  could  have  thrown 
off  such  a  couplet  as  that  Gray  made  for 
Nichols  while  walking  with  him  in  the  spring 
fields  near  Cambridge: 

"There  pipes  the  wood  lark,  and  the  song- 
thrush  there 
Scatters  his  loose  notes  in  the  waste  of  air." 

[201  ] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

Or  what  other  poet  could  so  have  caught  the 
flute-hke  note  of  the  young  Milton  as  Gray  did 
in  the  lines  he  puts  into  his  great  predecessor's 
mouth  in  the  Installation  Ode: 

"Ye  brown  o'er-arching  groves, 

That  contemplation  loves, 
Where  willowy  Camus  lingers  with  delight! 

Oft  at  the  blush  of  dawn 

I  trod  your  level  lawn, 
Oft  woo'd  the  gleam  of  Cynthia  silver-bright 
In  cloisters  dim,  far  from  the  haunts  of  Folly, 
With  Freedom  by  my  side,   and  soft-eyed 

Melancholy." 

Gray  had,  moreover,  the  true  poet's  quick 
sensitiveness  to  the  appeal  of  romantic  land- 
scape, literature,  and  tradition.  Classical  in 
his  expression,  he  became  more  and  more,  as  he 
advanced  in  life,  romantic  in  his  taste.  Here, 
too,  he  was  at  variance  with  the  spirit  of  his 
age.  To  style  a  scene,  a  sentiment,  or  a  story 
romantic  was  in  the  eyes  of  the  censors  of  his 
day  to  condemn  it  as  wild,  extravagant,  or 
improbable.  But  Gray  set  his  Bard  among 
the  savage  mountains  of  Wales,  paraphrased 

[202] 


"The  Frugal  Note  of  Gray"' 

stirring  battle-pieces  by  the  Celtic  bards,  and 
introduced  his  astonished  countrymen  to  the 
grim  mythology  of  Scandinavia.  It  is  hard 
to  believe  that  we  are  listening  to  a  writer  of 
the  mid-eighteenth  century  when  we  read  the 
ringing  lines  that  tell  how  the  Fatal  Sisters 
plied  their  ghastly  loom,  or  how  Odin  rode 
down  the  yawning  steep  to  wake  the  witch- 
wife  in  her  grave : 

"Facing  to  the  northern  clime. 
Thrice  he  traced  the  runic  rhyme; 
Thrice  pronounced,  in  accents  dread. 
The  thrilling  verse  that  wakes  the  dead; 
Till  from  out  the  hollow  ground 
Slowly  breath'd  a  sullen  sound." 

Would  not  one  say  that  we  were  listening  to 
the  voice  of  Sir  Walter?  But  the  mere  truth 
is  that  Gray  broke  the  way  not  only  for  Scott, 
but  for  all  who  since  his  day  have  turned  with 
delight  to  the  wild,  enchanted  fields  of  northern 
myth  and  saga. 

Finally,  the  truest  poetic  quality  in  Gray 
is  his  gift  of  tender,  quiet  pathos.     The  gentle 

[203] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

melancholy  that  overhung  his  life,  deepening 
at  times  into  profound  depression,  and  but 
rarely  lifting  to  let  his  native  graceful  humor 
shine  through  the  clouds,  interpenetrates  the 
greater  part  of  his  verse  and  finds  its  supreme 
expression  in  the  Elegy.  There  is  nothing 
poignant,  Httle  that  is  personal,  in  Gray's 
pathos.  We  know  that  the  Elegy  had  its 
origin  in  a  mood  of  melancholy  brooding  due 
to  Gray's  loss  of  a  relative,  and  found  its  long- 
deferred  completion  during  a  similar  mood 
due  to  a  like  cause.  Yet  it  is  singularly  ab- 
stract and  general  in  tone.  Not  once  in  all 
its  calm  and  gentle  progress  do  we  catch  the 
cry  of  personal  lament.  That  cry,  as  I  have 
pointed  out,  occurs  once,  and  once  only,  in 
Gray.  There  is  nothing  here  of  the  stormy 
wrath  of  Lycidas,  of  the  lofty  aspiration  of 
Adonais,  of  the  alternations  of  hope  and  doubt 
that  pass  like  April  cloud  and  sunshine  over 
In  Memoriam.  Yet  who  would  wish  the  Elegy 
other  than  it  is  ?    What  it  lacks  in  thrill  of  in- 

[204] 


''The  Frugal  Note  of  Gray'' 

dividual  passion  it  gains  in  breath  and  univer- 
sality of  emotion.  As  the  poet  muses  over 
the  unknown  and  nameless  dead,  it  is  not  so 
much  the  voice  of  Gray  that  we  hear  as  "the 
still,  sad  music  of  humanity."  And  this  music, 
like  that  which  Wordsworth  heard  in  later 
days,  is 

"Not  harsh,   nor  grating,   though   of   ample 
power 
To  chasten  and  subdue." 

It  is  one  of  the  fashions  of  contemporary 
criticism  to  inquire  somewhat  curiously  into 
the  mission  and  the  message  of  a  poet.  I  am 
by  no  means  sure  that  this  quest  is  always  suc- 
cessful. Too  often,  I  think,  the  critic  reads 
out  of  the  poet  only  what  he  has  first  read  into 
him.  Gray,  we  know,  wrote  to  please  him- 
self, with  httle  care  for  his  effect  upon  the 
world.  But  the  unconscious  teacher  is  often 
the  best,  and  if  for  once  we  should  indulge  in 
this  modern  fashion,  might  it  not  be  true  to 
say    that    Gray's    mission    was    to    teach    the 

[205] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

dignity  and  beauty  of  poetry  as  an  art,  and  that 
his  message  was  to  touch  an  age  singularly 
hard  and  coarse  with  a  sense  of  the  pathos  of 
human  destiny.  And  might  one  not  go  further 
and  find  in  Gray  a  special  lesson  for  an  age 
so  loud,  so  troubled,  and  so  rebellious  as  our 
own,  the  lesson  of  gentleness  and  resignation. 
One  stanza,  excised  from  the  Elegy  by  too 
severe  a  hand,  seems  to  me  to  sum  up  this 
lesson  in  Gray's  own  perfect  way: 

"Hark!  how    the    sacred   calm,    that    broods 

around. 
Bids  every  fierce,  tumultuous  passion  cease. 
In  still,  small  accents  whisp'ring  from  the 

ground 
A  grateful  earnest  of  eternal  peace." 


[206] 


The 
Charm  of  Goldsmith 

TO  be  the  best-beloved  of  English  vsriters, 
what  a  title  is  that  for  a  man "  —  so 
Thackeray  opens  his  delightful  lecture  on 
Oliver  Goldsmith  in  the  English  Humourists. 
And  this  title  Goldsmith  has  borne  almost  with- 
out a  rival  from  the  day  of  his  death.  While  he 
lived,  men  too  generally  underestimated  him, 
rascals  cheated  him,  blackguards  slandered 
him;  his  very  friends  alternately  ridiculed  and 
reproved  him.  Yet  even  then  he  was  loved, 
loved  in  spite  of  his  follies  and  frailties,  by  all 
who  had  themselves  the  heart  to  recognize  the 
warm,  generous,  human  heart  that  beat  be- 
neath the  ugly  and  ridiculous  exterior  of  the 
little  Irish  doctor.  At  the  news  of  his  death 
Burke  burst  into  tears,  and  Reynolds  laid  aside 

[207] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

his  brush  and  closed  his  studio  —  which  he  had 
never  done  before  even  in  times  of  deep  do- 
mestic affliction.  But  perhaps  the  most  touch- 
ing tribute  to  his  memory  was  the  outburst  of 
lament  from  the  poor  women  who  crowded  the 
staircase  to  his  chambers;  wretched  outcasts, 
waiting  there  to  hear  the  last  of  the  kind  gentle- 
man who  had  never  insulted  their  misery  and 
who  had  often  emptied  his  slender  purse  to  re- 
lieve their  wants. 

"Let  not  his  frailties  be  remembered," 
wrote  Johnson  of  Goldsmith,  some  months 
after  his  death.  "  He  was  a  very  great  man." 
Yet  to-day  it  is  not  so  much  Goldsmith's  great- 
ness as  his  delightfulness  that  fills  the  mind  of 
the  reader  who  turns  once  more  the  well-worn 
pages  of  the  Vicar  of  Wakefield,  the  Deserted 
Village,  or  She  Stoops  to  Conquer.  And  so 
little  can  we  obey  the  great  moralist's  injunc- 
tion to  forget  poor  Goldsmith's  frailties  that  we 
are  perhaps  almost  too  prone  to  dwell  upon 
them.     Goldsmith's  faults  were  never  such  as 

[208] 


The  Charm  of  Goldsmith 

to  startle  or  repel.  In  his  lifetime  they  wronged 
none  but  himself.  And  since  his  death  it 
would  seem  that  they  have  atoned  for  the  in- 
jury they  did  by  winning  for  him  the  hearts  of 
all  who  desire  to  feel  between  themselves  and 
the  great  men  of  the  past  the  bond  of  a  common 
humanity. 

Nowhere,  I  think,  is  this  bond  more  readily 
perceptible  than  in  the  case  of  Goldsmith. 
As  we  read  the  story  of  his  life,  we  feel  that  in 
all  but  genius  he  is  one  of  us.  We  first  pity, 
and  then  love  him. 

Goldsmith's  life  falls  into  three  uneven  parts : 
the  period  of  youth  and  merry  idleness,  the 
period  of  obscure  poverty  and  drudgery,  and 
the  period,  all  too  brief,  of  literary  and  social 
distinction.  He  was  born  in  1728,  in  a  "tum- 
ble-down, fairy -haunted  farm-house,"  near  the 
little  Irish  village  of  Pallas.  His  father, 
Charles  Goldsmith  belonged  to  an  English 
family  who  had  been  long  enough  resident  in 
Ireland  to  acquire  many  of  the  characteristics 

[209] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

of  the  native  Irish,  especially  their  gaiety, 
sunny  temper,  credulity,  and  careless  disregard 
of  the  hard  facts  of  life.  He  himself  had  made 
an  improvident  marriage  and  at  the  time  of 
Oliver's  birth  was  a  country  parson,  eking  out 
his  forty  pounds  a  year  by  farming.  Shortly 
afterwards  he  was  transferred  to  a  parish  worth 
two  hundred  pounds  per  annum,  in  which  he 
regarded  himself  as  so  passing  rich  that  he 
"  wound  up "  his  brood  of  cliildren  —  Oliver 
was  one  of  ten  — "  to  be  mere  machines  of  pity," 
and  "perfectly  instructed  them  in  the  art  of 
giving  away  thousands  before  they  were  taught 
the  more  necessary  qualifications  for  earning  a 
farthing."  These  are  Goldsmith's  own  words, 
taken  from  one  of  the  many  autobiographical 
passages  in  his  works,  and  they  show  what, 
perhaps,  we  might  have  guessed  without  them, 
that  the  art  of  profuse  expense  and  somewhat 
thoughtless  charity  in  which  he  was  so  great  a 
master  was  no  mere  individual  characteristic  but 
an  inherited  and  early-developed  family  trait. 

[210] 


The  Charm  of  Goldsmith 

As  a  child  Goldsmith  is  said  to  have  been 
stupid,  sensitive,  hot-tempered,  and  loving. 
His  growth  was  checked  and  his  features  deeply 
scarred  by  an  attack  of  small-pox.  He  passed 
through  several  schools  with  no  particular 
credit,  and  at  the  age  of  seventeen  was  in- 
duced, much  against  his  will,  to  enter  the  Uni- 
versity of  Dubhn. 

Goldsmith's  reluctance  was  not  due  to  a  dis- 
Uke  of  learning,  but  to  his  keen  perception  of 
the  humiUating  terms  upon  which  it  was  now 
offered  him.  His  father's  income  had  been  so 
reduced  by  the  effort  to  provide  a  dowry  for 
the  eldest  daughter  of  the  family,  who  had 
secretly  married  a  gentleman  above  her  in 
rank  and  wealth,  that  he  could  not  afford  to 
send  Oliver  to  college,  except  as  a  sizar. 
Now  a  sizar  in  those  days  was  little  better 
than  a  menial.  He  swept  courts,  carried 
dishes,  dined  on  fragments,  and  acquired  what 
learning  he  could  in  the  intervals.     In  Gold- 

[211] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

smith's  words,  he  was  *'  at  once  studying  free- 
dom and  practising  servitude." 

At  college  Goldsmith  passed  four  undistin- 
guished years.  It  is  plain  that  he  was,  and  felt 
himself,  wholly  out  of  place  within  the  academic 
walls.  Once  indeed  by  a  burst  of  energy  he 
gained  a  petty  prize  worth  thirty  shillings,  and 
it  is  eminently  characteristic  of  the  man  at  all 
times  of  his  life  that  he  promptly  spent  the 
money  in  an  entertainment  with  music  and 
dancing  in  his  attic  room.  His  tutor  heard 
the  sound  of  revelry,  burst  open  the  door, 
knocked  Goldsmith  down,  and  drove  the 
dancers  headlong  before  him  down  the  stairs. 
Poor  Goldsmith  promptly  ran  away  from  col- 
lege, starved  for  a  time  in  the  streets  of  Dublin, 
and  then  set  out  to  tramp  across  the  country 
with  some  vague  idea  of  taking  ship  for  Amer- 
ica. He  was  rescued  by  his  brother,  who 
brought  him  back  to  college  and  patched  up 
some  sort  of  a  truce  with  the  redoutable 
tutor.     It  is  pleasant  to  learn  that  this  hard- 

[212] 


The  Charm  of  Goldsmith 

hitting  personage  finally  came  to  a  disgrace- 
ful end. 

A  couple  of  anecdotes  are  preserved  that 
show  us  something  of  the  better  side  of  Gold- 
smith at  this  time.  He  used,  we  are  told,  to 
write  street-ballads  and  sell  them  at  five  shil- 
lings apiece  to  eke  out  his  miserable  allowance. 
At  night  he  would  steal  out  to  hear  them  sung 
and  peddled  off  in  the  Dubhn  alleys.  It  was 
under  such  circumstances  that  the  future 
author  of  the  Deserted  Village  made  his  first 
acquaintance  with  "  sweet  poetry  " : 

"  Thou  source  of  all  my  bliss  and  all  my  woe, 
That  found'st  me  poor  at  first,  and  keep'st 
me  so." 

Yet  poor  as  he  was,  Goldsmith  was  always 
ready  to  give  away  all  he  had  to  wretches  poorer 
than  himself.  A  friend  who  came  to  call  on 
him  one  morning  had  to  haul  liim  by  main 
force  out  of  the  ticking  of  his  mattress.  Gold- 
smith had  given  the  blankets  off  his  bed  the 
night  before  to  a  poor  woman  with  five  cliildren, 

[213] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

whom  he  found  crying  at  the  college  gates,  and 
to  keep  warm  had  burrowed  so  deeply  into  his 
mattress  that  he  could  not  get  out  again  with- 
out help.  The  story  is  ludicrous  or  pathetic, 
as  one  chooses  to  look  at  it.  Certainly,  it 
could  not  be  told  of  any  man  of  his  day  but 
OUver  Goldsmith. 

After  leaving  college  Goldsmith  passed  three 
happy,  idle  years  with  his  family.  He  ran  er- 
rands for  his  mother,  made  love  to  a  pretty 
cousin,  played  on  the  flute,  and  sang  songs  at  the 
village  tavern.  In  vain  did  his  relatives  attempt 
to  get  him  started  in  life.  They  induced  him  to 
apply  for  sacred  orders,  —  imagination  boggles 
at  Goldsmith  in  the  pulpit,— but  he  was  rejected 
by  the  bishop  on  the  ground,  we  are  told,  that 
he  apphed  for  ordination  in  a  pair  of  most 
unreverend  scarlet  breeches.  They  collected 
thirty  guineas  and  started  him  for  America  to 
seek  his  fortune.  He  came  back  in  six  weeks 
with  nothing  in  his  pocket,  and  with  an  amaz- 
ing tale  of  the  heartless  sea-captain  who  had 

[214] 


The  Charm  of  Goldsmith 

stripped  him  of  his  money  and  left  him  stranded 
at  Cork.  The  letter  which  he  wrote  on  this 
occasion  to  appease  his  mother's  not  unnatural 
wrath  is,  I  believe,  the  earliest  specimen  of  his 
composition  now  extant,  and  it  is  as  delightful 
as  a  chapter  of  the  Vicar  of  Wakefield,  and, 
possibly,  bears  about  the  same  relation  to  what 
actually  occurred  as  that  prose  idyl  does  to  real 
life.  Once  more  he  was  launched,  this  time 
with  London  as  his  goal;  but  he  got  no  farther 
than  Dublin,  when  he  fell  into  the  hands  of  a 
gambler  who  promptly  eased  him  of  the  fifty 
pounds  which,  we  may  suppose,  were  already 
beginning  to  burn  his  pocket.  With  one  last 
despairing  effort,  his  family  raised  a  final  purse, 
shipped  him  off  to  Edinburgh  to  study  medi- 
cine, and  washed  their  hands  of  him.  He 
never  returned  to  Ireland,  though  many  a  time 
his  heart  yearned  for  his  old  home,  and  he 
never  saw  any  of  his  kinsfolk  again,  except 
once  or  twice  when  a  brother,  as  poor,  as  rest- 
less, and  as  simple  as  Oliver  himself,  sought 

[215] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

him  out  in  his  London  garret  to  obtain  his  aid 
in  making  a  fortune. 

In  Edinburgh,  Goldsmith  stayed  two  years, 
making  a  pretence,  at  least,  of  study,  telling 
Irish  stories  in  the  students'  clubs,  and  spending 
a  disproportionate  share  of  his  small  allow- 
ance on  rich  sky-blue  satin  and  superfine  claret- 
colored  clothes.  From  Edinburgh  he  set  out 
for  Leyden,  ostensibly  to  listen  to  the  lectures 
of  the  learned  Albinus  and  the  not  less  learned 
Gaubius.  But  a  year's  intercourse  with  these 
worthies  sated  his  thirst  for  academic  knowl- 
edge; he  borrowed  a  small  sum  from  a  fellow- 
countryman,  spent  the  greater  part  of  it  in  the 
purchase  of  rare  tulip  bulbs  for  an  uncle  in 
Ireland,  and  set  out  on  his  travels  with  one 
guinea  in  his  pocket,  one  shirt  to  his  back,  and 
his  beloved  flute  in  his  hand,  a  happy,  philo- 
sophic vagabond. 

The  year  of  travel  that  ensued  was  probably 
the  most  important  event  in  Goldsmith's  life. 
It  widened  his  horizon,  stored  his  memory  with 

[216] 


The  Charm  of  Goldsmith 

scenes  and  images,  and  furnished  materials  for 
some  of  his  best  work.  He  has  left  us  a  pic- 
turesque account  of  it  in  the  story  of  George 
Primrose's  wanderings,  and  although  this  can 
hardly  be  taken  as  a  scrupulously  exact  piece 
of  autobiography,  we  know  from  other  sources 
that  it  contains  at  least  the  main  incidents  of 
Goldsmith's  tour.  He  traveled  on  foot,  earned 
a  night's  rest  and  a  breakfast  by  playing  on  his 
flute,  begged  a  dinner  at  the  door  of  some  con- 
vent, earned  a  few  shillings  occasionally  by 
disputing  at  some  university,  and  borrowed 
from  every  one  who  would  lend  to  him,  until, 
as  he  frankly  confessed,  there  was  hardly  a 
kingdom  in  Europe  in  which  he  was  not  a 
debtor.  He  passed  through  Belgium,  France, 
and  Switzerland,  visited  Italy  and  Germany, 
and  in  the  winter  of  1756  returned  to  England, 
"his  whole  stock  of  cash  amounting  to  a  few 
half-pence."  His  wander jahre  were  over,  and  a 
period  of  hard  work  and  grinding  poverty  was 
now  to  begin. 

[217] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

Goldsmith  was  at  this  time,  as  he  says  in  a 
letter,  "without  friends,  recommendations, 
money,  or  impudence,  and  that  in  a  country 
where  being  born  an  Irishman  was  sufficient 
to  keep  me  unemployed.  Many  in  such  cir- 
cumstances would  have  had  recourse  to  the 
friar's  cord  or  the  suicide's  halter.  But  with 
all  my  follies  I  had  principle  to  resist  the  one, 
and  resolution  to  combat  the  other." 

In  truth.  Goldsmith  was  no  longer  the  merry, 
lazy  boy  of  earlier  days;  nor  did  he  longer  ex- 
pect to  live  indefinitely  upon  the  bounty  of  his 
relatives.  On  the  contrary,  he  now  set  in  des- 
perately, one  might  almost  say  heroically,  to 
earn  a  living  for  himself.  But  this  was  no 
easy  matter.  He  seems  to  have  worked  his 
way  up  to  London  by  joining  a  troupe  of  stroll- 
ing players,  but  his  first  associates  in  the  capital 
were  the  beggars  of  Axe  Lane.  He  found  em- 
ployment as  a  chemist's  clerk,  rose  to  be  a  fee- 
less  doctor  in  the  slums,  acted  as  press  corrector 
to  the  printer  and  novelist,  Richardson,  served 

[218] 


The  Charm  of  Goldsmith 

for  a  time  as  usher  at  a  boys'  school,  and  finally 
hired  himself  out  as  hack-writer  to  a  pubhsher 
named  Griffiths.  Of  all  his  occupations, 
school-teaching  seems  to  have  been  the  one  he 
hated  most.  "I  have  been  an  usher  at  a 
boarding-school,"  says  a  character  in  the  Vicar, 
speaking  no  doubt  the  sentiments  of  Ohver 
Goldsmith,  "and  may  I  die  by  an  anodyne 
necklace  {i.  e.,  a  halter),  but  I  had  rather  be  an 
under  turnkey  in  Newgate.  I  was  up  early 
and  late;  I  was  browbeat  by  the  master,  hated 
for  my  ugly  face  by  the  mistress,  worried  by 
the  boys  within,  and  never  permitted  to  stir 
out  to  meet  civility  abroad." 

But  Goldsmith's  first  experiences  in  the 
literary  profession  can  hardly  have  been  pleas- 
anter  than  school -teaching.  He  lodged  and 
boarded  at  the  house  of  Griffiths,  who  com- 
plained of  his  idleness  because  he  did  not  write 
every  day,  and  all  day,  who  altered  his  articles, 
and  refused  him  sufficient  food.  In  despair 
Goldsmith   sought  for   an   appointment   as   a 

[219] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

doctor  in  the  service  of  the  East  India  Com- 
pany, and  to  obtain  the  necessary  outfit  com- 
posed his  well-known  Enquiry  into  the  State  of 
Polite  Learning  in  Europe.  The  title,  by  the 
way,  is  a  misnomer;  the  subject  it  indicates 
was  quite  beyond  Goldsmith's  capacity,  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  little  book  gives  a  very 
vivid  picture  of  the  degraded  condition  of  the 
profession  of  literature  in  England,  a  subject 
on  which  no  man  was  perhaps  better  qualified 
to  speak.  The  East  India  scheme,  however, 
fell  through,  and  as  a  last  attempt  to  escape 
from  the  slavery  of  hack-writing,  he  ap- 
plied for  a  position  as  hospital  mate,  and 
was  rejected  at  the  preliminary  examination. 
It  was  at  this  time  that  Goldsmith  touched  the 
lowest  point  of  misery;  he  pawned  his  clothes 
to  pay  his  landlady,  pledged  some  books  sent 
him  for  review  to  secure  a  meal,  was  threatened 
with  the  jail  by  the  angry  bookseller,  and  posi- 
tively entreated  as  a  favor  that  he  might  be 
sent  there.     The  quarrel  was  patched  up,  how- 

[220] 


The  Charm  of  Goldsmith 

ever,  and  the  success  of  his  Enquiry  which 
appeared  about  this  time  tended  somewhat  to 
improve  his  prospects  in  the  dreary  world  of 
which  he  had  now  become  a  citizen. 

Goldsmith  was  at  last  fairly  launched  upon 
the  sea  of  letters.  He  found  other  and  more 
generous  employers  than  Griffiths,  published 
a  charming  group  of  essays.  The  Bee,  and  a 
most  entertaining  series  of  letters  purporting 
to  be  written  by  a  Chinese  philosopher  in  Eng- 
land to  his  friends  in  the  Middle  Kingdom. 
He  wrote  a  life  of  Beau  Nash,  a  child's  history 
of  England,  and  contributed  essays,  reviews, 
and  biographical  sketches  to  the  magazines 
of  the  day.  Little  by  little  as  he  rose  in  the 
world  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  distin- 
guished men  of  letters.  Percy  called  at  his 
lodgings,  in  "a  wretched,  dirty  room,"  at  the 
head  of  Break-neck  Stairs.  He  entertained 
Johnson  at  a  dinner  in  the  politer  quarters  in 
Wine-office  Court,  to  which  he  soon  removed. 
Percy,  who  escorted  the  great  Cham  thither, 

[221] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

was  surprised  to  find  liim  in  a  new  suit,  a  new 
wig  nicely  powdered,  and  everything  about 
him  so  perfectly  dissimilar  from  his  usual 
habits  and  appearance  that  he  was  moved  to 
ask  the  cause.  "Why,  sir,"  said  Johnson,  "I 
hear  that  Goldsmith,  who  is  a  very  great  sloven, 
justifies  his  disregard  of  cleanliness  and  de- 
cency by  quoting  my  practice;  and  I  am  de- 
sirous this  night  to  show  him  a  better  example." 
No  record  remains  of  the  dinner  and  the  good 
things  that  were  said  over  it,  but  from  that 
night  on  Johnson  was  one  of  Goldsmith's 
closest  friends.  The  great  dictator  of  letters 
took  the  struggling  author  to  his  heart,  bar- 
gained for  him  with  the  booksellers,  bullied 
theatrical  managers  to  get  his  plays  produced, 
touched  up  his  poems,  and  at  his  death  wrote 
an  epitaph  in  his  most  magnificent  Latin  for 
his  monument  in  Westminster  Abbey,  scorn- 
ing, as  he  said,  to  disgrace  its  walls  by  an  Eng- 
lish inscription. 

In  1763  Goldsmith  was  enrolled  as  a  charter 
[222] 


The  Charm  of  Goldsmith 

member  of  the  famous  club  over  which  John- 
son ruled  so  long.  At  the  close  of  the  follow- 
ing year  he  pubhshed  his  first  signed  work, 
The  Traveller,  and  it  is  from  this  time  that  his 
contemporary  reputation  as  a  man  of  letters 
may  be  said  to  date.  When  he  joined  the  club 
certain  members  were  disposed  to  look  down 
upon  him  as  a  mere  literary  hack,  unworthy 
of  the  honor  of  their  society,  but  on  the  appear- 
ance of  the  Traveller,  Johnson's  pronuncia- 
mento  that  the  poem  was  superior  to  anything 
since  the  death  of  Pope  established  his  posi- 
tion. It  is  characteristic  of  Goldsmith  that 
this  poem,  his  first  bold  plea  for  fame,  was 
dedicated,  not  to  his  literary  protector,  nor  to 
some  noble  lord  who  might  have  rewarded  him 
with  a  handful  of  guineas,  but  to  his  brother 
Henry,  "a  man  who,  despising  fame  and  for- 
tune, has  retired  early  to  happiness  and  ob- 
scurity, with  an  income  of  forty  pounds  a  year." 
With  the  publication  of  the  Traveller,  Gold- 
smith entered  upon  his  last  period,  and  from 

[223] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

this  time  on  he  produced  an  uninterrupted 
series  of  classics.  Emboldened  by  the  success 
of  the  Traveller,  the  publishers  ventured  to 
print  a  novel  of  Goldsmith's  which  had  been 
lying  in  their  hands  for  at  least  three  years. 
This  was  none  other' than  the  immortal  Vicar 
of  Wakefield.  All  the  world  knows  the  story 
of  the  way  the  book  came  into  the  pubhshers' 
hands,  of  Goldsmith's  arrest  by  an  irate  land- 
lady, of  Johnson's  intervention,  of  the  novel 
"ready  for  the  press,"  which  Johnson  took  out 
and  sold  for  sixty  pounds,  and  of  the  scolding 
Goldsmith  gave  his  landlady  for  having  used 
him  so  ill.  A  recent  discovery  has  shown  that 
this  must  have  happened  soon  after  Goldsmith 
had  made  Johnson's  acquaintance,  and,  more- 
over, that  the  book  was  by  no  means  "ready 
for  the  press."  Probably,  indeed,  the  long  de- 
lay in  publication  was  due  not  only  to  the  hesi- 
tation of  the  publishers,  but  to  Goldsmith's 
tardiness  in  completing  a  work  for  which  he  had 
already  received,  and  spent,  the  money.     Of 

[224] 


The  Charm  of  Goldsmith 

one  thing,  at  least,  we  may  be  sure:  Gold- 
smith, if  left  to  himself,  would  never  have  sold 
the  Vicar  to  pay  a  landlady's  bill.  It  was 
work  of  another  sort  than  this  that  he  earned 
his  bread  and  butter  by.  And  it  may  well  be 
that  the  hasty  and  unsatisfactory  conclusion 
of  the  novel  is  due,  in  part,  to  its  having  been 
so  unceremoniously  taken  out  of  his  hands. 

Of  the  book  itself,  little  need  be  said.  It  is 
one  of  the  undisputed  classics  of  the  English 
language,  one  of  the  few  English  classics  whose 
merit  has  been  as  fully  and  continuously  recog- 
nized upon  the  continent  as  in  English-speak- 
ing lands.  Its  defects  are  obvious.  They 
were  obvious  even  to  the  author:  "there  are  a 
hundred  faults  in  this  thing,"  says  Goldsmith 
in  the  preface,  "and  a  hundred  things  might 
be  said  to  prove  them  beauties.  But  it  is  need- 
less." Quite  needless.  The  book  lives  and 
will  live,  not  by  its  plot,  or  its  characters,  but  by 
what  Henry  James  has  called  the  "  amenity  " 
of  its  author,  "the  frankness  of  his  sweetness 

[225] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

and  the  beautiful  ease  of  his  speech."  "  There 
was,"  says  the  critic,  "scarce  a  difficuUy,  a 
disappointraent,  an  humiHation,  or  a  bitterness 
of  which  he  had  not  intimate  and  repeated 
knowledge;  and  yet  the  heavy  heart  that  went 
through  all  this  overflows  in  the  little  book  as 
optimism  of  the  purest  water  —  as  good  humor, 
as  good  taste,  and  as  drollery." 

The  Vicar  was  followed  in  1768  by  Gold- 
smith's first  play.  The  Good-natured  Man.  Al- 
though it  ran  for  ten  nights  and  brought  Gold- 
smith a  decent  sum  of  money,  the  lively  comedy 
by  no  means  obtained  the  success  it  deserved. 
It  ran  counter  to  the  prevailing  taste  of  the 
time  for  the  sentimental  and  lachrymose 
drama;  elegant  judges  found  its  language  "un- 
commonly low";  in  fact,  it  seems  only  to  have 
escaped  being  damned  on  the  first  night  by  the 
comic  humor  of  one  of  the  actors.  Goldsmith 
was  bitterly  mortified.  At  a  meeting  of  the 
club,  after  the  play,  he  managed,  indeed,  to 
conceal  his  feelings,  laughed,  chatted,  and  sang 

[226] 


The  Charm  of  Goldsmith 

his  favorite  song;  but  "all  the  time,"  he  said, 
"I  was  suffering  horrid  tortures,  and  when 
all  were  gone  but  Johnson,  I  burst  out  a-crying, 

and  even  swore  by that  I  would  never  write 

again."  "All  which.  Doctor,"  said  Johnson, 
amazed  at  the  frankness  with  which  Goldsmith 
a  few  weeks  afterward  related  this  scene  in  a 
company  of  comparative  strangers,  "  I  thought 
had  been  a  secret  between  you  and  me;  and  I 
am  sure  I  would  not  have  said  anything  about 
it  for  the  world."  Of  course  he  would  not; 
but  a  man  may  be  allowed  to  laugh  at  his  own 
tears,  though  not  at  those  of  others;  and  we 
love  Goldsmith  for  his  tears  and  laughter  quite 
as  much  as  we  honor  Johnson  for  his  goodness 
and  self-control. 

Two  years  after  the  failure  of  his  comedy 
Goldsmith  achieved  an  undisputed  success  by 
the  publication  of  the  Deserted  Village.  Of 
this  poem  less  need  be  said,  perhaps,  than  even 
of  the  Vicar  of  Wakefield.  Its  place  among 
the  classics  of  our  language,  ratified  by  the  ap- 

[227] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

plause  and  tears  of  generations  of  readers,  is 
absolutely  secure.  What  signifies  pointing 
out,  as  certain  critics  of  the  baser  sort  have 
done,  that  its  economic  theories  are  crude  and 
its  pictures  of  rural  life  unreal?  It  is  not  the 
business  of  a  poem  to  teach  political  economy 
or  to  correspond  with  minute  accuracy  to  every- 
day existence.  Its  business  is  to  charm  the 
mind  and  touch  the  heart,  and  the  Deserted 
Village  does  both.  It  is  not  only  the  limpid 
purity  of  its  diction,  the  easy  flow  of  its  rhythm, 
and  the  old-world  grace  of  its  portraits  that 
have  made  the  poem  immortal;  but  even  more 
its  revelation  of  the  poet,  of  his  wistful  affec- 
tion for  the  friends  of  his  youth,  of  his  tender 
sympathy  for  the  misery  he  saw  about  him. 
Gentleness,  goodness,  and  humanity  breathe 
from  every  line. 

Goldsmith  completed  his  cycle  of  classics 
by  producing  in  1773  one  of  the  happiest  conor 
edies  of  our  language.  She  Stoops  to  Coitquer. 
Founded  upon  an  incident  of  his  own  school 

[228] 


The  Charm  of  Goldsmith 

days  the  story  of  the  play  is  purely  farcical; 
but  the  wit  of  the  dialogue  and  the  humor  of 
the  characters  raise  it  to  the  highest  plane  of 
comedy.  It  is  one  of  the  few  plays  of  its  cen- 
tury that  keep  the  stage  to-day,  and  it  is  hard 
to  anticipate  a  time  when  the  rollicking  fun  of 
Tony  Lumpkin  and  the  mischievous  grace  of 
Kate  Hardcastle  will  lose  their  hold  upon 
spectators. 

And  yet  it  was  with  the  greatest  difficulty 
that  this  most  delightful  of  plays  found  its  way 
upon  the  boards.  The  manuscript  lay  for 
months  in  the  hands  of  a  manager,  while  Gold- 
smith was  fretting  his  heart  out  with  impatience 
and  struggling  against  a  heavy  burden  of  debt; 
and  it  was  at  last  only  by  the  forceful  interven- 
tion of  Johnson  that  the  manager  was  induced 
to  accept  it.  He  did  so,  however,  with  the  full 
conviction  that  it  was  foredoomed  to  failure; 
he  refused  to  adorn  it  with  a  new  scene  or  a 
new  dress,  and  he  communicated  his  doubts 
to  the  actors  who  one  by  one  threw  up  their 

[229] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

parts.  But  when  at  last  all  obstacles  were 
overcome  and  the  play  appeared,  its  success 
was  instant  and  overwhelming.  The  club 
attended  the  first  night  in  a  body  to  beat  down 
the  anticipated  opposition,  but  the  enemies  of 
Goldsmith  did  not  dare  to  show  their  heads. 
As  Horace  Walpole  writes:  "All  eyes  were 
upon  Johnson,  who  sat  in  a  front  row  in  a  side 
box,  and  when  he  laughed  everybody  thought 
himself  warranted  to  roar." 

The  peals  of  laughter  which  greeted  the  ap- 
pearance of  She  Stoops  to  Conquer,  and  pro- 
claimed Goldsmith's  final  triumph  over  pre- 
judice and  false  taste,  marked  also  the  cloee  of 
his  career.  He  died  about  a  year  afterwards 
of  a  fever  brought  on  by  overwork  and  trouble 
of  mind,  leaving  a  few  short  poems  and  the 
brilliant  fragment.  Retaliation,  to  be  published 
after  his  death.  He  was  laid  to  rest  in  the 
burial  ground  of  the  Temple  Church;  his  books 
and  furniture  were  sold  to  pay  his  debts. 

It  must  not  be  thought  that,  during  this  last 
[230] 


The  Charm  of  Goldsmith 

period  when  Goldsmith  was  producing  his  best 
work,  he  had  risen  above  the  necessity  of  writ- 
ing for  his  daily  bread.  With  the  exception 
of  his  two  plays  he  hardly  made  enough  by  his 
masterpieces  to  buy  butter  for  his  bread.  The 
Traveller  brought  him  twenty  guineas,  the 
•  Vicar  sixty  pounds,  the  Deserted  Village,  we 
are  told,  one  hundred  pounds.  He  would 
indeed  have  been  glad  to  devote  himself  wholly 
to  work  of  this  sort,  but  no  way  ever  opened 
for  him.  His  friends  at  one  time  applied  for 
a  pension  such  as  had  been  granted  Johnson, 
but  it  was  promptly  refused  by  the  government, 
probably  because  Goldsmith  had  declined  to 
hire  out  his  pen  in  their  service  against  the  party 
of  his  friend,  Burke.  The  Lord  Lieutenant 
of  Ireland  once  offered  his  patronage,  but  Gold- 
smith begged  him  to  transfer  it  to  his  brother 
Henry.  And  so  he  struggled  on,  collecting 
anthologies,  compiling  histories  of  Greece  and 
Rome,  abridging  his  own  compilations,  turn- 
ing out  lives  of  Parnell  and  Bolingbroke,  and 

[231] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

finishing  the  very  month  before  his  death  an 
eight-volume  work  on  Animated  Nature.  Hard 
task-work,  but  not  without  intervals  of  inno- 
cent amusement.  When  Goldsmith  had  writ- 
ten himself  to  a  standstill,  he  used  to  in- 
dulge in  one  of  the  vacations  which  he  called 
"a  Shoemaker's  Holiday."  Three  or  four 
friends  would  meet  for  breakfast  in  his  rooms, 
stroll  out  along  the  city  road  and  through  the 
fields  to  a  country  inn,  where  they  dined  at 
ten-pence  a  head,  play  skittles  in  the  afternoon, 
and  return,  as  evening  fell,  for  supper  in  a  Lon- 
don coffee-house.  The  whole  expense  of  the 
excursion,  we  are  told,  never  exceeded  a  crown, 
and  oftener  was  from  three  to  four  shillings, 
"for  which  the  party  obtained  good  air  and 
exercise,  good  living,  the  example  of  simple 
manners  and  good  conversation." 

In  the  face  of  such  a  simple  record  as  this, 
handed  down  to  us  by  a  contemporary  who 
had  often  been  Goldsmith's  fellow  in  a  Shoe- 
maker's Holiday,  it  is  a  little  hard  to  believe 

[  232  ] 


The  Charm  of  Goldsmith 

the  stories  of  the  poet's  vanity,  profusion,  sen- 
suahty,  and  passion  for  gambhng  which  are 
bandied  about  from  one  biographer  to  another. 
Yet  it  is  probable  that  these  tales  have  a  cer- 
tain foundation  of  truth.  Goldsmith  had  to 
the  last  the  heart  of  a  child.  He  was  child- 
ishly eager  to  attract  attention,  to  shine,  to 
please.  He  decked  his  little  body  in  the  most 
gorgeous  raiment  and  left  a  large  tailor's  bill 
unpaid  behind  him.  He  entertained  sumptu- 
ously at  his  rooms,  not  to  gratify  his  own  ap- 
petite, for  he  is  described  as  drinking  hot  milk 
at  these  banquets,  but  to  give  pleasure  to  his 
friends.  From  one  vice,  at  least,  common 
enough  in  his  age.  Goldsmith  always  seems  to 
have  been  free;  he  was  not  a  drinking  man. 
It  is  not  so  easy  to  acquit  him  of  the  charge  of 
gambling.  There  is  a  good  deal  of  contem- 
porary testimony  to  show  that  he  was  fond  of 
play,  and  quite  as  much  to  show  that  he  always 
lost.  He  had  a  child's  love  of  excitement,  a 
child's  firm  conviction  that  he  would  finally 

[233] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

win,  and  a  child's  incapacity  to  match  older 
and  craftier  players.  There  is  a  most  amusing 
picture  in  his  rhymed  letter  to  Mrs.  Bunbury 
of  the  way  in  which  she  and  her  sister,  the  Jes- 
samy  Bride,  lured  him  on  with  mocking  ad- 
vice to  lose  his  shillings  at  loo.  But  there  is 
another  story,  not  so  well  known  as  it  might 
be,  which  shows  how  little  Goldsmith  had  of 
the  true  gambler's  absorbing  passion.  He 
was  playing  whist  one  night  with  a  party  of 
friends,  for  money  of  course,  as  every  one 
played  at  that  time.  At  a  critical  moment  of 
the  game,  when  the  rubber  depended  upon  a 
single  point.  Goldsmith  suddenly  threw  down 
his  hand  and  dashed  out  of  the  house  into  the 
street.  "  Where  the  deuce  have  you  been  ?  " 
said  one  of  the  players  on  his  return.  "I'll 
tell  you,"  he  replied.  "As  I  was  pondering 
over  my  cards,  my  attention  was  attracted  by 
the  voice  of  a  woman  in  the  street,  who  was 
singing  and  sobbing  at  the  same  time;  so  I  flew 
down  to  relieve  her  distress,  for  I  could  not  be 

[234] 


The  Charm  of  Goldsmith 

quiet  myself  till  I  had  quieted  her."  We  can 
hardly  imagine  Charles  Fox,  Lord  March,  or 
any  other  of  the  famous  gamblers  of  the  day, 
quitting  the  table  to  relieve  the  sorrows  of  a 
poor  street-singer. 

Of  envy,  the  basest  vice,  with  which  Gold- 
smith has  been  charged,  we  may  unhesitatingly 
pronounce  him  free.  He  was  vain,  no  doubt, 
and  his  vanity  was  often  hurt  by  the  way  in 
which  men  whom  he  rightly  believed  to  be  in- 
ferior to  himself,  Beattie,  for  example,  and 
Kelley,  were  pensioned  and  applauded,  while 
he  was  neglected.  And  with  a  child's  lack  of 
self-control,  he  uttered  his  feelings  when  wiser 
men  would  have  been  silent.  Often,  too,  his 
supposed  outbursts  of  envy  were  whimsical 
extravagances  misunderstood  by  the  solemn 
fools  to  whom  they  were  addressed.  ^¥ho 
can  believe,  for  instance,  that  he  was  actually 
envious  when  he  said  to  Boswell,  expatiating 
on  the  greatness  of  their  common  friend :  "  Do 
not  talk  of  Johnson  in  such  terms;  it  harrows 

[235] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

up  my  very  soul."  The  fact  is  that  Goldsmith 
was  a  simple  man  in  a  somewhat  sophisticated 
society,  and  its  members  mistook  his  occasional 
petulance  for  malice,  and  his  jests  for  bitter 
earnest.  Even  Johnson  seems  in  this  point  to 
have  misunderstood  him. 

But  we  may  comfort  ourselves  with  a  re- 
mark of  Johnson's,  made  shortly  after  Gold- 
smith's death,  when  a  roomful  of  people  at 
Sir  Joshua's  were  depreciating  their  dead 
friend's  work.  The  loyal  old  man  rose  to  his 
feet,  looked  the  chatterers  in  the  face,  and  ex- 
claimed, "If  nobody  was  suffered  to  abuse 
poor  Goldy  but  those  who  could  write  as  well, 
he  would  have  few  censors!"  And  to  sum  up 
the  whole  matter.  Goldsmith  wrote  so  well  be- 
cause he  was  at  bottom  so  good.  If  he  had  the 
faults  of  a  child,  he  had  as  well  a  child's  vir- 
tues. He  loved  children  because,  as  has  been 
said,  he  was  always  at  heart  a  child.  He 
was  unsuspicious,  generous,  and  confiding; 
tender-hearted  and  easily  moved  to  pity.     If 

[236] 


The  Charm  of  Goldsmith 

he  ever  took  offence,  as  he  was  often  warranted 
in  doing,  he  was  always  ready  to  forgive. 
Above  all  he  had  that  simple  faith  in  goodness, 
human  and  divine,  which  our  Lord  himself 
recognized  as  not  the  least  of  virtues  when  he 
set  a  little  child  in  the  midst  of  the  wrangling 
disciples.  And  it  is  this  childlikeness,  if  I  may 
use  the  word,  appearing  as  it  does  both  in  his 
life  and  in  his  work,  that  constitutes  for  all 
who  know  him  the  peculiar  charm  of  Oliver 
Goldsmith. 


[237] 


The  Last  Minstrel 

SCOTT  was  in  his  time  the  most  popular 
of  all  the  great  poets  of  the  Romantic 
movement,  and  he  remains  to-day  the  best 
loved  of  their  number.  Whatever  may  be  the 
received  opinion  as  to  the  merit  of  his  verse 
when  compared  with  that  of  his  contempo- 
raries, it  is  impossible  to  feel  for  the  cold  auster- 
ity of  Wordsworth,  the  passionate  egoism  of 
Byron,  or  even  the  sensitive  ideality  of  Shelley, 
anything  like  that  sentiment  of  warm  personal 
affection  which  we  cherish  for  the  kindly,  gen- 
erous, and  broadly  human  personality  of  Scott. 
In  part,  no  doubt,  this  sentiment  is  due  to  the 
unbounded  reverence  of  boyhood  for  the  won- 
der-working poet  who  unbarred  the  gates  and 
led  the  way  into  the  enchanted  garden  of  ro- 
mance. Nine  out  of  every  ten  readers  of  Eng- 
lish verse  may,  I  fancy,  repeat  with  all  sincerity 

[238] 


The  Last  Minstrel 

and  truth  the  closing  words  of  Lang's  letter  to 
Sir  Walter:  "From  you  first,  as  we  followed 
the  deer  with  King  James,  or  rode  with  Wil- 
liam of  Deloraine  on  his  midnight  errand,  did 
we  learn  what  Poetry  means  and  all  the  happi- 
ness that  is  in  the  gift  of  song.  This  and  more 
than  may  be  told  you  gave  us,  that  are  not  for- 
getful, not  ungrateful,  though  our  praise  be 
unequal  to  our  gratitude." 

But  there  is  something  more  in  our  feeling 
for  Scott  and  his  work  than  a  mere  lingering 
of  the  ingenuous  and  uncritical  admiration  of 
boyhood.  There  comes  a  time,  indeed,  in 
most  lives  when  Scott's  poems  are  thrown 
aside  for  the  work  of  other  poets,  graver  or 
more  sensuous,  subtler  or  more  passionate. 
At  such  a  period,  too,  his  novels  suffer  under 
the  onslaughts  of  the  newly  awakened  critical 
sense;  one  is  apt  to  pronounce  them  stilted  in 
diction,  clumsy  in  machinery,  and  generally 
wanting  in  technic.  But  this  period  passes, 
like  other  literary  maladies,  and  we  come  back 

[239] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

to  Scott  with  a  renewed  delight  in  that  brave 
spirit  of  adventure  which  bewitched  our  youth, 
and  with  a  truer  appreciation  of  the  lyric 
beauty,  the  power  of  sustained  narrative,  the 
vigorous  and  varied  gift  of  character  portrayal 
which  combine  with  his  epic  simplicity  and 
his  romantic  charm  to  insure  him  a  permanent 
place,  not  in  his  native  language  only,  but 
among  the  great  names  of  the  literature  of  the 
world. 

It  is  probable  that  Scott's  popularity  rests 
to-day,  with  the  generality  of  readers,  rather 
upon  his  novels  than  his  verse.  This  is  due 
in  part  to  the  almost  unchallenged  pre-emi- 
nence which  fiction  since  Scott's  day  has  ob- 
tained over  other  forms  of  literature,  and  to 
the  present  almost  unbroken  preoccupation  of 
the  general  reader  with  novels,  and  novels 
only.  And  it  is  due  in  part  also  to  the  undis- 
puted fact  that  many  of  the  best  characteristics 
of  Scott  —  his  shrewd  and  sunny  humor,  his 
genial  sympathy  with  all  sorts  of  men,   and 

[  240  ] 


The  Last  Minstrel 

his  firm  grasp  on  the  realities  of  hfe  —  are 
revealed  more  clearly  in  his  novels  than  in  his 
poetry.  Yet  it  is  no  less  true  that  the  neglect 
which  his  verse  suffered  during  the  greater 
part  of  the  last  century  was  undeserved.  His 
fame  was  eclipsed  by  the  successive  ascensions 
of  Byron,  Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Brown- 
ing. Each  of  these  poets  became  famous, 
and  rightly  famous,  for  qualities  and  effects 
not  to  be  found  in  Scott,  and  as  a  consequence 
Scott's  verse  was  underrated  because  it  lacked 
these  qualities  and  effects.  A  saner  and  more 
sympathetic  criticism  estimates  a  poet  by  what 
he  is  and  does,  not  by  what  he  could  not  be 
and  never  dreamed  of  doing.  Toward  the  close 
of  the  Victorian  era  poetry  tended  more  and 
more  to  become  a  thing  of  the  study,  and  the 
appreciation  of  poetry  to  become  less  popular 
in  the  true  sense  of  the  word,  and  more  narrowly 
limited  to  a  small,  refined,  and  art-loving  class, 
in  whose  eyes  the  open-air,  impetuous,  and 
often  careless  verse  of  Scott  was  an  unpardon- 

[241] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

able  crime  against  the  canons  of  true  art.  The 
world-wide  vogue  of  Kipling's  verses  in  the  last 
decade,  however,  would  seem  to  indicate  that 
a  strong  reaction  against  the  later  Victorian 
standards  has  already  set  in,  and  it  is  by  no 
means  improbable  that  as  the  critics  come  to 
realize  that  the  last  word  of  poetry  was  not 
spoken  by  Tennyson,  Rossetti,  or  Swinburne, 
they  may  also  come  to  recognize  more  gen- 
erally the  widely  diverse  merits  of  the  great 
predecessor  of  these  poets. 

The  truth  is  that  Scott,  although  his  poetic 
activity  falls  almost  wholly  within  the  nine- 
teenth century,  was  absolutely  unmoved  by 
the  great  currents  of  feeling  which  swayed 
that  age.  His  attitude  toward  the  principles 
that  precipitated  the  gigantic  convulsion  of 
the  Revolution  in  France  and  brought  about 
the  bloodless,  but  no  less  important,  reform 
of  the  English  constitution  was  from  first  to 
last  that  of  the  fighting  Tory.  In  his  fiery 
youth  he  headed  a  band  of  gentlemen   who 

[242] 


The  Last  Minstrel 

cracked  the  heads  of  Irish  Jacobins  in  the 
pit  of  the  Edinburgh  theater;  in  his  decrepit 
old  age  he  sprang  from  his  carriage  to  arrest 
a  radical  rowdy  at  the  Selkirk  hustings.  His 
political  ideas  were  summed  up  in  the  old 
Cavalier  motto:  "Fear  God;  honor  the  king." 
His  attitude  toward  George  IV,  over  which 
Thackeray  makes  merry,  was  not  that  of  a 
servile  courtier  to  his  sovereign,  but  that  of  a 
Highland  bard  toward  the  chief  of  his  clan. 
Scott  was  the  last  English  poet  to  whom  the 
sentiment  of  loyalty  in  its  old  accepted  mean- 
ing was  something  more  than  an  idle  phrase. 
He  was  in  fact  the  last  minstrel,  and  his  muse 

the  Lady  of  the  Mere 


Sole-sitting  by  the  shores  of  old  romance." 

Scott  represents  the  culmination  of  the  eight- 
eenth century's  interest  in  the  romantic  and 
medieval  past.  In  him  the  tendencies  that  had 
budded  in  Horace  Walpole  and  Bishop  Percy 
and ' '  Ossian ' '  McPherson  broke  out  into  full  and 

[243] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

perfect  flower.  Our  knowledge  of  the  Middle 
Ages  is  to-day  in  many  respects  more  accurate 
and  well-rounded ;  our  poets  and  novelists  would 
shudder  at  such  light-hearted  anachronisms 
as  those  in  which  Scott  leaps  over  the  centuries 
to  make  his  wizard  clansman  contemporary 
with  Queen  Mary's  moss-troopers,  or  to  send 
a  Danish  viking  campaigning  like  a  Crusader 
"on  Carmel's  cliffs  and  Jordan's  strand." 
And  yet  with  all  our  increase  of  knowledge 
and  painstaking  accuracy  of  expression  it  is 
doubtful  whether  any  poet  since  Scott's  day 
has  ever  penned  a  passage  so  instinct  with 
medievalism  as  the  well-known  description  of 
Branksome  at  the  opening  of  the  Lay  or  the 
scarcely  less  famous  Mass  in  Melrose  Abbey 
at  its  close.  Here  as  nowhere  else  in  modern 
English  literature  the  romantic  past  is  seized 
and  realized  in  two  of  its  most  dominating  fea- 
tures, warfare  and  religious  devotion. 

Of  a  third  great  element  in  medievalism, 
romantic  love,   Scott  is  said  to  have  had  a 

[244] 


The  Last  Minstrel 

fainter  perception ;  and  it  is  clear  that  the  pas- 
sion of  love  plays  but  a  small  part  in  his  verse. 
And  yet  I  doubt  whether  any  later  poet  has 
reproduced  more  accurately  the  attitude  of  the 
medieval  minstrel  toward  love  both  in  its 
lighter  and  graver  aspects  as  Scott  in  one 
of  the  least  regarded  of  his  poems,  The  Bridal 
of  Triermain.  It  would  be  an  interesting 
study  to  compare  the  Arthur  of  that  poem,  the 
chivalric,  adventurous,  and  amorous  king  of  the 
old  romances,  with  the  spirituaHzed  and  alle- 
gorized Arthur  of  the  Idylls  of  the  King.  Ten- 
nyson's may  be  the  nobler  conception,  but  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  Scott's  is  the  more  truly 
medieval ;  and  the  perfect  close  of  Sir  Roland's 
love-quest  stands  in  admirable  contrast  to 
the  hopeless  muddle  of  medieval  and  modern 
with  which  Tennyson  winds  up  his  charming 
idyll  on  the  love-quest  of  Sir  Gareth.  "  Scott's 
feeHng  for  romance,"  says  one  of  the  shrewdest 
of  his  later  critics,  and  the  depth  of  his  sym- 
pathy with  all  that  was  heroic  and  much  that 

[245] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

was  merely  ancient,  enabled  him  to  assume 
almost  the  attitude  of  the  wandering  minstrel"; 
and  in  addition  to  the  passage  just  noted  a 
hundred  others  might  be  quoted  to  verify  the 
truth  of  this  assertion. 

Scott's  feeling  for  romance  and  sympathy 
with  the  heroic  past  came  to  him  in  the  most 
natural  way,  through  heredity  and  early  en- 
vironment. He  was,  to  be  sure,  the  son  of  a 
sedate  and  practical  Edinburgh  lawyer,  but 
he  was  also  the  descendant  of  a  famous  hard- 
riding,  hard-fighting  clan,  the  sixth  in  right 
line  from  Walter  of  Harden,  the  hero  of  many 
a  Border  ballad,  and  his  wife,  the  Flower  of 
Yarrow  —  no  bad  genealogy,  as  Scott  himself 
remarked  with  conscious  pride,  for  a  Border 
minstrel.  He  was  born  in  what  is  still  the 
most  romantic  of  British  towns,  and  his  early 
years  were  spent  with  his  grandparents  in  a 
farmhouse  overlooking  the  Tweed,  where  he 
was  brought  up  in  an  atmosphere  of  Jacobite 
tales    and    Border    legends  —  an    atmosphere 

[246] 


The  Last  Minstrel 

wonderfully  reproduced  for  us  in  the  auto- 
biographic lines  prefixed  to  the  third  canto 
of  Marmion.  The  first  poem  that  he  learned 
by  heart  was  the  ballad  of  Hardyknut,  the  first 
book  that  he  read  aloud  was  Pope's  Iliad. 
Wliile  still  a  boy  he  read  both  Ossian  and 
Spenser,  and  committed  to  memory  long  pas- 
sages of  the  Faerie  Queene.  To  a  residence 
during  his  twelfth  year  in  Kelso,  "the  most 
beautiful  village  in  Scotland,"  Scott  himself 
traced  the  awakening  of  his  feeling  for  the 
beauties  of  nature,  a  feeling  inextricably  in- 
tertwined in  him  with  a  sense  of  the  historic 
or  legendary  past  of  which  these  beauties  were 
the  frame.  Scott  was  no  pure  nature-wor- 
shiper like  Wordsworth;  a  landscape  meant 
little  or  nothing  to  him  unless  it  were  asso- 
ciated with  romantic  memories.  As  he  put 
it,  very  frankly,  he  would  rather  wander  over 
the  field  of  Bannockburn  than  survey  the  scene 
from  the  battlements  of  Stirling. 

One    of    the    most    important    incidents    in 
[247] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

Scott's  early  life  was  his  acquaintance  with 
Percy's  ballad  collection,  Reliques  of  Ancient 
English  Poetry.  It  was  not  that  the  book 
opened  a  new  field  to  the  boy,  for  he  had  been 
familiar  since  infancy  with  ballads  and  legends; 
but  it  showed  him  that  the  collection,  anno- 
tation, and  imitation  of  these  old  songs  was  a 
pursuit  worthy  of  a  scholar  and  a  gentleman. 
To  Scott's  first  reading  of  the  Reliques  under 
a  huge  plantanus  tree  in  the  Kelso  garden, 
oblivious  of  the  flight  of  time  and  the  pangs 
of  hunger,  may  be  traced  his  own  great  col- 
lection, the  Minstrelsy  of  the  Scottish  Border; 
and  the  Minstrelsy  laid  the  foundation  for 
perhaps  the  greater  portion  of  his  later  work. 

Scott's  schooling  was  limited  and  irregular. 
He  declined  to  learn  Greek,  and  provoked 
the  wrath  of  his  teacher  by  composing  an  argu- 
ment to  prove  the  superiority  of  Ariosto  to 
Homer.  He  neglected  the  Latin  classics  to 
fasten  eagerly  upon  the  monkish  chroniclers 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  very  properly  preferred 

[248] 


The  Last  Minstrel 

the  Stabat  Mater  and  the  Dies  Irce  to  the  neo- 
classic  poems  of  the  Renaissance.  Outside 
of  school  hours  he  taught  himself  French  and 
Italian,  for  the  specific  purpose  of  mastering 
the  romantic  treasures  of  those  languages. 
He  attended  but  few  classes  at  the  university, 
and  although  he  studied  hard  and  passed  with 
credit  his  examinations  for  entrance  to  the 
Scottish  bar,  his  heart  was  never  in  his  pro- 
fession. And  yet  his  profession  was  of  the 
greatest  service  to  him,  for  it  sent  him  wan- 
dering all  over  Scotland  in  pursuit  of  witnesses 
and  testimony.  He  utihzed  these  excursions 
to  store  his  mind  with  images  of  romantic 
scenery  and  ruined  castles  and  abbeys,  with 
snatches  of  old  songs  and  ballads,  with  anec- 
dotes and  legends  of  Highland  chieftains  and 
Border  cattle- thieves.  Before  long  he  set 
himself  diligently  to  collect  the  half-forgotten 
ballads  of  the  Border-side,  and  his  annual 
raids  into  Liddesdale  not  only  secured  him 
the    treasures   which   he   went   to    seek,    but 

[249] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

familiarized  him  with  a  mode  of  life  which 
had  changed  but  little  since  the  old  moss-troop- 
ing days.  In  after  years  Scott  was  accustomed 
to  lament  the  idleness  and  irregular  studies  of 
his  youth;  but  it  is  certain  that  no  formal  train- 
ing could  have  fitted  him  half  so  well  for  the 
work  he  was  to  do,  and  all  true  Scott  lovers 
will  readily  agree  with  Ruskin's  charming 
paradox  that  the  poet  enjoyed  "the  blessing 
of  a  totally  neglected  education." 

Scott's  first  contribution  to  literature  was 
under  the  auspices  of  the  new  romantic  school 
of  Germany.  He  translated  Burger's  ghostly 
ballads,  Lenore  and  The  Wild  Huntsman, 
and  Goethe's  chivalric  drama  Goetz  von 
Berlichingen.  Proceeding  to  original  composi- 
tion he  fell  in  with  "  Monk  "  Lewis,  the  recog- 
nized leader  of  the  romantic  movement  in  the 
highest  circles  of  English  society,  and  con- 
tributed to  his  Tales  of  Wonder  a  group  of 
ballads,  among  them  Glenfinlas,  The  Eve  of 
St.  John,  and  The  Fire-King.     Here  we  find 

[250] 


The  Last  Minstrel 

the  first  true  evidences  of  Scott's  genius.  The 
vigorous  diction,  Hvely  rhythm,  and  picturesque 
imagery  of  these  poems  stand  out  in  striking 
contrast  to  the  tinsel  and  clap-trap  of  Lewis's 
own  productions.  And  the  strong  sense  of 
locahty,  the  poetic  use  of  proper  names,  and 
the  mastery  of  supernatural  effects  which  they 
exhibit  were  all  true  promises  of  greater  things 
to  come. 

The  Minstrelsy,  Scott's  next  work,  did  not 
appear  until  three  years  later.  The  author's 
original  intention  had  been  to  publish  a  neat 
little  book,  such  as  might  sell  for  four  or  five 
shillings.  But  the  work  grew  on  his  hands. 
In  addition  to  his  own  stores  of  legend  and 
ballad,  Scott  drew  on  the  resources  of  such 
scholars  as  Ellis  and  Ritson,  such  countryside 
collectors  and  composers  as  Leyden  and  Hogg. 
The  result  was  a  three-volume  collection, 
which  is  simply  the  best  ballad-book  in  the 
world.  Scott  never  hesitated  to  take  liberties 
with  his  originals;  he  combined,  altered,  and 

[251] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

inserted  passages  at  will.  He  did  all  this,  how- 
ever, not  to  tickle  the  palate  of  a  too  fastidious 
public  in  Bishop  Percy's  fashion,  but  to  bring 
the  corrupt  and  imperfect  versions  up  to  his 
own  standard  of  taste;  and  his  taste  in  ballad 
literature  was  nothing  short  of  the  highest. 
He  treated  the  ballads,  in  fact,  not  like  a  mod- 
ern editor,  but  like  an  old  minstrel;  and  as  the 
last  and  greatest  of  the  minstrels  he  brought 
many  of  them  into  their  final  and  most  perfect 
form. 

And  the  prose  of  the  book,  the  introduction, 
the  essay  on  fairies,  the  voluminous  historical 
and  legendary  notes,  is  only  a  little  less  delight- 
ful than  the  ballads.  It  contained  the  ma- 
terial for  a  hundred  romances,  and  was  the 
storehouse  whence  Scott  drew  uncounted 
names,  scenes,  and  incidents  for  his  later  work. 
Years  afterwards,  when  Scottish  society  was 
rent  asunder  over  the  authorship  of  the  Waver- 
ley  novels,  Christopher  North  ridiculed  the 
folly  of  those  who  went  far  afield  to  discover 

[252] 


The  Last  Minstrel 

the  writer.  "  What  are  they  all  thinking  of  ?  " 
said  he;  "have  they  forgotten  the  prose  of  the 
Minstrelsy?  " 

Scott  began  the  composition  of  his  first  long 
poem,  The  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel,  in  the 
same  year  that  saw  the  publication  of  his  Border 
Ballads.  He  derived  a  hint  for  the  subject 
from  the  young  and  beautiful  wife  of  the  noble- 
man who  afterwards  became  Duke  of  Buc- 
cleuch,  the  famous  title  of  the  chief  of  the  Scott 
clan.  Scott  has  immortalized  her  as  the  Duch- 
ess of  the  introduction  to  the  Lay,  where  he 
himself  appears  under  the  thin  disguise  of  the 
aged  minstrel.  It  would  be  impossible  to  find 
in  modern  times  a  situation  more  charmingly 
medieval.  A  young  countess  commands  the 
minstrel  of  her  house  to  sing,  and  even  sets 
him  a  subject;  the  minstrel  obeys,  and  weaves 
into  his  song  the  happiest  of  compliments  to 
his  gracious  lady  and  the  most  delicate  con- 
fession of  his  devotion  and  gratitude.  And 
the  song  itself  is  such  as  a  minstrel  of  the  Middle 

[  253  ] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

ages  might  have  sung,  a  metrical  romance  of 
chivalry.  Like  most  of  the  old  romances  it 
is  deficient  in  construction  and  overcharged  with 
episode;  but  the  episodes  are  too  deUghtful  to 
wish  away,  and  in  poems  of  this  sort  elaborate 
plot-construction  is  perhaps  the  last  thing  that 
matters. 

The  Lay,  to  quote  Lockhart's  fine  phrase, 
is  "a  vivid  panorama  of  that  old  Border  life 
of  war  and  tumult  and  all  earnest  passions." 
Love,  war,  rehgion,  and  magic  are  woven  to- 
gether into  one  imperishable  fabric  of  romance, 
while  at  the  same  time  the  poet  never  wholly 
loses  touch  with  the  reahties  of  life.  William 
of  Deloraine,  Wat  Tinlinn,  the  representatives 
of  the  English  yeomanr}^  are  veritable  crea- 
tures of  flesh  and  blood,  and  more  than  suffice 
to  save  the  poem  from  drifting  off  into  the 
dreamy  land  of  Otherwhere,  in  which,  for 
example,  the  scene  of  Coleridge's  contem- 
porary romance  of  Christabel  is  laid. 

Marmion,  the  greatest  of  Scott's  poems, 
[254] 


The  Last  Minstrel 

appeared  some  three  years  after  the  Lay.  It 
was  composed  for  the  most  part  in  the  saddle, 
during  long  rides  over  the  braes  or  along  the 
sands  in  the  intervals  of  drilling  with  a  volun- 
teer regiment  of  cavalry.  England  was  then 
in  the  full  tide  of  her  struggle  against  the  gi- 
gantic power  of  Napoleon,  and  Scott,  it  is 
needless  to  say,  threw  himself  into  the  struggle 
with  all  his  heart.  From  it  he  caught  more 
than  a  mere  taste  of 

"That  stern  joy  which  warriors  feel 
In  foemen  worthy  of  their  steel." 

The  poem  itself  breathes  full  of  the  mighty 
passion  of  the  time.  Alone  of  Scott's  tales  in 
verse  it  may  with  some  fairness  lay  claim  to 
the  proud  epithet  of  epic.  Had  the  poet  been 
fortunate  enough  at  this  period  to  light  upon 
the  theme  that  he  took  up  later  in  the  decay  of 
his  powers,  the  wars  of  Bruce,  and  had  he  de- 
veloped that  theme  with  the  care  which  he 
acknowledges  to  have  bestowed  in  unrivaled 

[255] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

measure  upon  Marmion,  we  should  perhaps 
have  had  what  it  now  seems  impossible  that 
we  shall  ever  see,  a  modern  national  epic  poem. 
Even  as  it  is,  Marmion  is  many  degrees  above 
the  Lay  which  precedes  and  The  Lady  of  the 
Lake  which  follows  it,  in  all  that  pertains  to 
unity,  dignity,  and  tragic  force.  The  plot, 
though  somewhat  complicated,  is  a  true  plot 
and  not  a  mere  succession  of  incidents  —  it 
moves  forward  step  by  step ;  the  fortunes  of  the 
principal  figures  are  relieved  against  a  well- 
planned  background  of  history,  and  in  the 
superb  climax  of  the  poem  the  fates  of  hero, 
heroine,  and  villain  are  involved  in  the  over- 
whelming national  catastrophe  of  Flodden. 
Words  are  too  weak  to  praise  the  battlepiece 
with  which  the  poem  ends.  It  stands,  along 
with  the  battles  of  the  Iliad  and  the  slaughter 
of  the  Nibelungs  in  Atli's  Hall,  as  one  of 
the  three  great  poetic  expressions  of  the  fight- 
ing spirit  in  man,  ancient,  medieval,  and 
modern. 

[256] 


The  Last  Minstrel 

The  Lady  of  the  Lake  is  the  most  popular  of 
Scott's  poems,  a  fact  due  in  large  part,  at  least, 
to  its  happy  choice  of  subjects.  It  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that  in  this  poem  Scott  opened  to 
English  readers  a  world  entirely  new,  for  the 
effusions  of  the  pseudo-Ossian  some  fifty  years 
before  had  been  far  too  vague  and  intangible 
to  give  any  conception  of  the  life  behind  the 
Highland  hills.  Alien  in  blood  and  language 
as  Scott  was,  he  recognized  in  the  dominating 
principle  of  this  life,  loyalty  to  the  chief,  one  of 
the  strongest  of  his  own  convictions;  and, 
guided  by  this  clue,  he  reconstructed  and  por- 
trayed the  customs  and  national  characteristics 
of  the  Highlanders  in  a  fashion  that  has  been 
and  will  be  the  delight  of  generations.  It  was 
an  astonishing  tour  de  force,  but,  after  all,  it 
was  little  more.  There  is  a  faint  flavor  of  arti- 
ficiality about  the  poem ;  it  is  as  if  Scott's  grasp 
on  real  life  weakened  when  he  deserted  the  nar- 
row limits  of  his  own  peculiar  land  between 
Edinburgh  and  the  Border.     In  story  and  in 

[257] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

style  The  Lady  of  the  Lake  is  the  simplest,  most 
polished,  and  most  evenly  sustained  of  all  his 
poems;  but  if  it  never  sinks  so  low,  it  never 
rises  within  striking  distance  of  the  loftiest 
flights  of  the  Lay  and  Marmion,  and  some  of 
its  best  passages  are  weakened  by  our  sense  that 
the  same  thing  has  been  done  and  better  done 
before.  The  Battle  of  Beal'  an  Duine  is  a 
long  way  behind  Flodden.  And  yet  when  we 
hear  that  a  Scotch  ofiicer  in  the  Peninsular 
War  read  this  battlepiece  to  his  company 
lying  exposed  to  the  fire  of  the  French  guns,  and 
that  the  men  listened  in  breathless  attention, 
only  interrrupting  with  a  joyous  hurrah  as  the 
shot  struck  the  bank  above  their  heads,  we 
feel  the  utter  futility  of  criticism.  In  poetry, 
as  in  sport  or  war,  blood  will  tell,  and  the  blood 
of  generations  of  fighting  men  was  warm  in 
Scott's  veins. 

Space  forbids  any  detailed  consideration  of 
the  later  poems.  Yet,  with  the  exception  of 
the  two  dealing  with  contemporary  events,  and 

[258] 


The  Last  Minstrel 

possibly  the  careless  and  ill-conceived  romance 
Harold  the  Dauntless,  they  by  no  means  de- 
serve to  be  dismissed  without  a  word.  Some- 
thing has  already  been  said  of  The  Bridal  of 
Triermain.  The  Lord  of  the  Isles  contains  at 
least  one  scene  equal  to  the  finest  passages  of 
the  Lay,  and  many  that  are  httle  below  the  level 
of  The  Lady  of  the  Lake.  Rokeby,  of  all  Scott's 
poems,  seems  to  me  the  most  undeservedly  neg- 
lected. Less  fortunate  in  the  choice  of  a  sub- 
ject than  in  any  other  of  his  romances,  Scott 
has  here  laid  his  main  stress  upon  character- 
ization, and  the  chief  figures  in  Rokeby  are 
drawn  with  an  attention  to  detail,  and  set  off 
against  each  other  in  such  effective  contrast,  as 
prepares  us  for  the  best  work  of  his  novels. 
Matilda,  drawn  from  Scott's  remembrance  of 
his  first  love,  is  the  most  real  of  all  the  heroines 
of  his  poems;  Redmond  is  by  long  odds  the 
strongest  of  his  heroes ;  and  Bertram,  the  cen- 
tral figure  of  the  whole  romance,  is  the  most 
superb  portrait  in  Scott's  collection  of  heroic 

[259] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

villains.  But  the  crowning  glory  of  Roheby  is 
the  lovely  garland  of  lyrics  which  is  so  deftly  in- 
terwoven with  the  action  of  the  tale.  Long 
after  we  have  forgotten  the  descriptions  and 
incidents  of  the  poem,  the  gay  lilt  of  the  "  Cav- 
alier Song"  and  the  tender  cadences  of  "O, 
Brignall's  banks,"  and  "A  weary  lot  is  thine, 
fair  maid,"  linger  in  our  ears.  The  last-named 
song,  indeed,  seems  to  me  the  very  quintessence 
of  Scott's  lyric  gift. 

It  is  hard  to  part  from  Scott.  There  is  so 
much  over  which  one  would  gladly  pause: 
the  mingled  grace  and  strength  of  his  elegiac 
moods,  the  frank  simplicity  of  his  occasional 
outbursts  of  self-revelation,  the  loving  and 
minute  detail  of  his  bits  of  landscape-painting. 
But  the  purpose  of  this  essay  has  been  to  ex- 
plain and  illustrate  but  one  aspect  of  Scott's 
poetry,  and  to  portray  Scott  himself  as  the  last 
of  the  minstrels,  the  restorer  to  English  liter- 
ature of  the  well-nigh  forgotten  medieval  forms 
of  the  ballad  and  the  metrical  romance,  the  in- 

[260] 


The  Last  Minstrel 

spired  awakener  of  an  undying  interest  in  the 
legendary  and  chivalric  past,  the  golden  link 
that  binds  us  to  the  middle  ages.  And  this 
purpose  it  may  be  hoped  has  been,  in  some 
measure,  already  accomplished. 


[261] 


The 
Vitality  of  Browning 

IT  was  the  fashion  some  time  ago  to  speak 
with  a  certain  easy  contempt  of  the  late-won 
popularity  of  Browning's  verse,  to  make  small 
jokes  about  the  labors  of  the  Browning  Society, 
and  to  prophesy  that  the  popularity  and  the 
Society  alike  were  a  mere  fad  which  would 
hardly  outlive  the  poet  himself.  Browning  has 
been  dead  some  fifteen  years;  the  Browning 
Society  soon  followed  him  to  the  grave;  the 
fad,  if  fad  it  were,  of  assuming  a  peculiar  posi- 
tion in  the  world  of  culture  by  exclusive  and 
esoteric  devotion  to  his  poems,  has  also  passed 
away.  And  yet  Browning  remains  as  popular 
as  ever.  Perhaps  more  so.  Not  only  is  his 
rank  as  one  of  the  greater  Victorian  poets 
tacitly   admitted, —  a  fact    which  was   by  no 

[262] 


The  Vitality  of  Browning 

means  appcarent  when  Mr.  Stedman's  well- 
known  review  of  the  poetry  of  that  age  ap- 
peared in  1887  —  but  he  is  constantly  quoted 
or  alluded  to  in  such  a  way  as  to  show  that  this 
rank  is  not  an  empty  honor  conferred  upon  the 
illustrious  dead,  but  rather  the  recognition  of 
his  permeating  influence  upon  the  present  time. 
And  there  are  other  proofs  of  Browning's  hold 
upon  the  public.  Editions  of  his  works  are 
rapidly  multiplying.  His  earlier  poems,  in 
particular,  as  they  pass  out  of  copyright,  are 
being  reproduced  in  cheap  and  attractive  forms; 
and  since  the  appearance  of  Mrs.  Browning's 
Letters  in  the  closing  years  of  the  last  century 
there  has  been  a  steady  succession  of  books 
about  the  poet,  which  has  culminated  this  pres- 
ent year  in  Professor  Dowden's  thoughtful  and 
illuminating  "biography  of  the  poet's  mind," 
perhaps  the  most  valuable  contribution  to  our 
knowledge  of  the  man  and  his  work  that  has 
yet  been  made.  Decidedly  Browning  is  not 
dead  yet. 

[  263  ] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

"No  need  that  sort  of  king  should  ever  die," 
says  one  of  the  characters  in  Pippa  Passes, 
and  so  may  we  say  of  Browning.  The  quaUty 
most  characteristic  of  the  man,  from  his  im- 
petuous and  eager  youth  to  his  magnificent  old 
age,  was  energy,  activity,  vitality  of  body  and 
mind. 

There  was  discernible  in  him,  indeed,  a  cer- 
tain restless  activity.  He  could  not  sit  long 
over  a  book;  he  would  not  spend  his  time  in 
the  slow  labor  of  the  file  that  brings  forth  at 
last  the  perfect  line.  He  needed  to  the  very 
end  of  his  life  some  outlet  for  his  superabun- 
dant physical  energies.  And  so  he  rode  for 
hours,  walked  for  miles,  swam  far  out  into  the 
sea,  bathed  in  mountain  brooks,  modeled  in 
clay;  —  any  occupation  was  welcome  that  gave 
his  powers  play.  And  his  mind  was  as  active 
as  his  body.  If  he  did  not  read  long,  he  read 
swiftly  and  widely,  and  assimilated  instantly 
what  once  he  read.  If  he  did  not  meditate 
profoundly,  he  thought  vehemently,  springing 

[264] 


The  Vitality  of  Browning 

with  lightning  bounds  over  the  processes  of 
reason  to  the  goal  of  truth.  He  was  insatiable 
in  his  thirst  for  acquisition  and  enjoyment. 
He  tasted  all  the  pleasures  of  travel,  society, 
art,  and  music.  He  drank  deep  of  the  cup  of 
love.  But  he  was  not  content  with  mere  en- 
joyment. Whatever  he  touched  he  sought  to 
master  and  understand.  Like  his  own  Fra 
Lippo,  the  world  meant  intensely  to  him,  and 
to  find  its  meaning  was  his  meat  and  drink. 
There  is  no  poet  in  our  literature  who  shows 
in  so  abundant  measure  the  presence  of  this 
element  of  intellectual  curiosity. 

And  the  same  vitality  that  characterized  the 
man  marks  his  work  as  well.  There  are  many 
faults  in  Browning,  faults  of  omission  and 
commission,  rough  places,  ugly  spots,  offences 
to  eye  and  ear.  But  there  is  one  fault  with 
which  his  severest  critic  cannot  charge  him. 
He  is  never  dull.  The  wine  he  pours  is  not 
always  sweet,  but  it  is  never  flat  or  vapid. 
It  has  always  a  certain  keen  smack  and  pun- 

[265] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

gent  aroma  which  assures  us  that  the  poet's 
spirit  is  still  there. 

Browning's  parents  were  quiet  bourgeois 
people,  but  each  of  them  furnished  something 
of  the  matter  which,  touched  by  the  spark  of 
genius,  broke  out  into  flower  in  the  poet.  His 
father,  denied  the  artistic  and  the  classical 
education  for  which  he  had  longed  in  youth, 
was  a  clerk  in  the  Bank  of  England,  a  self- 
taught  scholar,  a  prodigious  reader,  and  an 
indefatigable  book  hunter.  "  His  brain,"  said 
his  son  in  after  years,  "was  a  storehouse  of 
literary  and  philosophical  antiquities."  He 
was  fond  of  poetry  and  art,  and  himself  wrote 
verses,  and  drew,  cleverly  enough,  portraits  and 
caricatures.  He  possessed  robust  health  and 
a  fund  of  simple,  unworldly  affection  for  wife, 
children,  and  friends.  The  poet's  mother, 
slight,  delicate,  and  high-strung,  was,  in  Car- 
lyle's  phrase,  "  the  true  type  of  a  Scottish  gen- 
tlewoman." Her  son's  affection  for  her  was 
deep  and  lasting.     Through  all  the  years  of  his 

[266] 


The  Vitality  of  Browning 

life  as  a  young  bachelor  in  his  parents'  house 
he  never  went  to  bed  without  going  into  her 
room  to  kiss  her  good-night,  and  at  her  death, 
which  happened  while  he  was  away  at  Flor- 
ence, his  wife  wrote:  "Robert  has  loved  his 
mother  as  such  passionate  natures  only  can 
love,  and  I  never  saw  a  man  so  bowed  down 
in  such  extremity  of  sorrow  —  never."  Both 
husband  and  wife  were  devout  Christians  of  the 
simple,  old-fashioned  type,  members  of  an 
Independent  congregation  in  a  London  suburb, 
evangelical,  rather  than  sacerdotal  or  ascetic. 
Browning's  education  was  peculiar.  He  left 
school  in  his  fourteenth  year,  and  never  went  to 
college,  unless  a  brief  attendance  on  a  Greek 
class  in  London  University  may  be  reckoned 
such.  But  his  home  training  was  excellent. 
He  cultivated  the  body,  learnt  to  ride,  box, 
dance,  and  fence;  devoted  much  time  to  music; 
and  under  his  father's  guidance  read  omniv- 
orously,  English,  French,  Latin,  and  Greek. 
There  is  little  reason  to  share,  I  think,  his 

[267] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

oflBcial  biographer's  regret  that  Browning 
missed  the  conventional  EngUsh  course  of 
instruction. 

Like  most  poets  Browning  was  a  precocious 
boy.  He  read  Pope's  Homer  with  keen  de- 
hght  at  the  age  of  eight,  plunged  headlong  into 
Byron  at  ten,  and  in  his  twelfth  year  produced 
a  volume  of  verses  of  the  true  Byronic  stamp, 
in  which  we  are  told,  "he  yearned  for  wastes 
of  ocean  and  illimitable  sands,  for  dark  eyes 
and  burning  caresses,  for  despair  that  nothing 
would  quench  but  the  silent  grave,  and,  in 
particular,  for  hollow,  mocking  laughter."  It 
is  needless  to  say  that  no  publisher  shared  the 
proud  parents'  opinion  of  this  early  work,  and 
it  is  characteristic  of  Browning  that,  as  soon  as 
he  came  to  years  of  discretion,  he  destroyed  the 
manuscript. 

While  Browning  was  still  a  boy,  however,  he 
came  under  a  nobler  and  more  permanent  in- 
fluence than  that  of  Byron.  A  pretty  story  is 
told  of  his  discovery  in  a  suburban  bookstall 

[268] 


The  Vitality  of  Browning 

of  a  copy  of  "  Mr.  Shelley's  Atheistical  Poem," 
Queen  Mob;  of  his  mother's  sympathy  with  her 
boy's  new  interest,  of  her  presentation  of  an 
armful  of  volumes  by  Mr.  Shelley  and  his 
friend  Mr.  Keats;  and  of  the  boy's  rapturous 
communion  through  a  summer  night,  while 
nightingales  sang  in  the  garden,  with  the  souls 
of  poets  dead  and  gone.  To  the  end  of  his  life 
Browning  never  forgot  that  night;  he  often 
spoke  of  it  as  "his  first  joy,  his  first  free  hap- 
piness in  outlook."  And  well  might  he  re- 
member it,  for  the  soul  of  the  poet  was  born  in 
him  that  night. 

And  it  was  not  long  before  he  definitely 
decided  to  devote  his  life  to  poetry.  With  the 
full  consent  of  his  father,  who  seems  to  have 
entertained  the  same  well-founded  confidence 
in  his  son's  genius  that  Milton's  father  did. 
Browning  declined  to  enter  business  or  prepare 
for  a  profession,  and  set  himself  to  study  life, 
and  to  cultivate  his  powers  for  his  future  work. 
His  first  actual  production,  it  must  be  owned, 

[269] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

was  somewhat  disappointing.  Pauline,  a  long, 
monodramatic  poem,  intended  to  serve  as  the 
introduction  to  a  series  of  similar  epics,  "nar- 
ratives of  the  lives  of  typical  souls,"  was  written 
before  Browning  was  twenty-one,  and  ap- 
peared anonymously  in  1833.  It  attracted 
almost  no  attention,  and  in  spite  of  certain 
passages  of  a  wild,  vague  beauty,  contained 
little  of  true  promise.  For  its  very  beauties 
were  but  faint  echoes  from  Shelley.  The  por- 
trait of  the  nameless  hero  is  shadowy  and  ob- 
scure; that  of  the  lady  of  the  poem  is,  perhaps, 
even  less  perceptible.  Browning  himself  real- 
ized his  lack  of  "good  draughtsmanship  and 
right  handling,"  and  in  later  years  acknowl- 
edged and  retained  the  piece  among  his  collected 
works  with  extreme  reluctance. 

It  is  another  matter  with  Browning's  next 
work.  Paracelsus,  published  In  1835,  is  a 
creation  which  any  poet  might  be  proud  to 
own.  Coming  from  the  hand  of  a  youth  of 
twenty-three,  it  amazes  us,  not  so  much  by  its 

[270] 


The  Vitality  of  Browning 

eloquence  and  beauty  as  by  its  strength  of 
thought,  its  grasp  on  hfe,  its  revealed  mastery 
of  poetic  conception  and  execution.  The  por- 
trait of  Paracelsus,  the  first  in  Browning's  long 
gallery  of  heroes  who  strove  and  failed  and 
wrested  victory  out  of  defeat,  is  lifelike  and 
convincing.  Such  and  no  otherwise  we  must 
believe  the  real  man  to  have  been.  And  the 
central  theme  of  the  poem  reveals  with  an 
intense  simplicity  seldom  matched  thereafter  in 
Browning's  work  what  was  to  be  the  cardinal 
point  of  his  philosophy  of  life, — the  necessity 
of  human  striving,  undismayed  by  weakness, 
ignorance,  and  failure,  sustained  and  cheered 
by  love  and  sympathy,  upward  toward  the 
ideal  of  humanity,  which  is  none  other  than 
God  himself. 

It  is  a  long  step  backward  from  Paracelsus 
to  Sordello,  which  closes  the  first  period  of 
Browning's  work.  In  fact  it  appeared  at  one 
time  as  if  the  publication  of  this  unlucky  poem 
had  forever  closed  the  gates  against  Browning's 

[271] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

favor  with  the  English  public.  The  stories 
that  are  told  of  its  reception  by  Carlyle,  who 
declared  that  his  wife  had  read  it  through  with- 
out being  able  to  discover  whether  Sordello 
were  the  name  of  a  man,  a  city,  or  a  book;  by 
Tennyson,  who  declared  that  he  had  under- 
stood but  two  lines,  the  first  and  last,  and  that 
both  these  were  lies;  and  by  Douglas  Jerrold, 
who  saw  in  his  utter  inability  to  make  sense  of 
the  poem  a  symptom  of  incipient  idiocy,  and 
was  only  rescued  from  despair  by  his  wife's 
frank  assertion  that  it  was  the  poet  and  not 
the  reader  who  was  mad;  —  these  stories  but 
faintly  illustrate  the  dumb  amazement  with 
which  the  public  in  general  received  the  book. 
And  even  to-day  a  not  wholly  dissimilar  effect 
is  produced  upon  the  reader  who  approaches 
the  poem  for  the  first  time,  equipped  though 
he  may  be  with  the  whole  armory  of  guides, 
hand-books,  and  commentaries  which  have 
gathered  round  this  portentous  work  of  Brown- 
ing's youth.     The  truth  is  that  Sordello,  though 

[272] 


The  Vitality  of  Browning 

by  no  means  so  obscure  or  illegible  as  tra- 
dition gives  out,  is  a  work  of  extreme  difficulty. 
The  style  is  condensed,  abrupt,  and  allusive  to 
a  degree,  — "  Greek  written  in  shorthand," 
some  one  has  called  it.  The  main  theme, 
"incidents  in  the  development  of  a  soul,"  on 
which  Browning  meant  to  lay  stress,  is  too 
often  buried  from  sight  in  a  multitude  of  de- 
tails gathered  from  his  historical  studies  and 
his  recent  Itahan  travels.  Only  an  utter  lack 
of  the  critical  instinct  could  have  persuaded 
Browning  into  the  beUef  he  is  said  to  have 
entertained  that  this  unwieldly  narrative  would 
be  inteUigible,  even  in  its  main  outhnes,  to  the 
average  reader.  But  Browning  had  at  all  times 
of  his  hfe  far  more  of  the  creative  impulse  than 
of  the  critical  instinct. 

Browning's  second  period  of  work  overlaps 
his  first,  and  coincides  with  the  introduction  to 
society  and  the  world  of  letters  which  the  suc- 
cess of  Paracelsus,  hmited  as  this  success  was, 
had  won  for  him.      He  was   at  this  time   a 

[  273  ] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

tall,  dark,  handsome  youth,  something  of  a 
dandy  in  dress,  vivacious  and  friendly  in  man- 
ner. He  was  eager  to  wring  from  the  world 
all  that  it  had  to  offer  one  fresh  from  so  se- 
cluded a  boyhood,  and  gladly  cultivated  the 
friendships  with  poets,  actors  and  men  of  letters 
whom  this  new-found  world  revealed  to  him. 
It  was  at  the  suggestion  of  one  of  these  new 
friends,  the  great  actor,  Macready,  that 
Browning  in  1836  laid  aside  his  half-finished 
Sordello  and  began  the  first  of  his  series  of 
plays. 

Luckily  one  need  spend  little  time  nowa- 
days in  threshing  over  the  straw  of  that  once 
hotly  debated  question  whether  or  not  Brown- 
ing was  a  dramatist.  If  by  the  word  drama- 
tist we  mean  what  the  word  has  meant  from 
the  time  of  ^schylus  to  the  time  of  Ibsen,  a 
writer  of  plays  for  the  stage,  Browning  has 
small  claim  to  the  title.  It  is  quite  true  that 
several  of  his  plays  were  actually  performed 
and  that  none  of  these  positively  failed.     As 

[274] 


The  Vitality  of  Browning 

to  the  exact  measure  of  success  attained  by 
Sirafjord,  A  Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon,  or  Co- 
lomhe's  Birthday,  we  may,  I  think,  remain 
wholly  and  calmly  indifferent.  Indeed,  it  may 
well  be  a  matter  of  congratulation  to  us  that 
their  success  was  not  more  decided,  and  that 
Browning  escaped  a  permanent  entanglement 
with  so  effete  and  moribund  an  institution  as 
the  Victorian  theater.  His  failure  as  a  prac- 
tical playwright,  for  failure  in  view  of  all  the 
circumstances  it  must  be  called,  threw  him 
back  upon  his  own  proper  field,  that  drama 
"whose  stage,"  to  quote  the  admirable  phrase 
of  a  French  critic,  "is  the  soul  itself  and  whose 
actors  are  the  passions." 

The  dramatic  quality  in  Browning  consists, 
to  put  it  briefly,  in  his  objectivity,  in  his  power 
to  conceive  other  characters  than  his  own,  in 
his  ability  to  make  these  characters  reveal 
themselves  by  thought  and  word  and  action. 
And  this  second  period  of  Browning's  work, 
in  sharp  distinction  to  his  first,  is  pre-eminently 

[275] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

objective.  Exclusive  of  Sordello,  a  poem  be- 
gun and  in  part  completed  before  Browning 
began  his  work  for  the  stage,  this  period  em- 
braces his  productions  from  1837  to  1846.  It  in- 
cludes Strafford,  and  the  seven  plays  and  two 
clusters  of  dramatic  lyrics  and  romances  which 
go  to  make  up  the  series  of  Bells  and  Pome- 
granates. In  all  these  it  is  hard  to  find  a 
single  direct  and  personal  utterance  of  the 
poet  such  as  occurs  so  often  in  his  earliest 
work.  It  is  as  if  Browning  had  felt  the  inade- 
quacy of  the  material  on  which  he  had  hitherto 
built  up  his  theory  of  life,  and  now  flung  him- 
self upon  the  world  to  gather  new  facts,  create 
new  characters,  invent  new  tests,  and  thus 
equip  himself  by  experimental  knowledge  of 
human  life  for  the  pronunciation  of  a  riper  and 
juster  judgment.  And  what  a  wealth  of  new 
material  the  poet  brought  back  from  this  raid 
upon  objective  existence.  To  this  period  be- 
long Pippa  and  her  songs,  the  superb  and 
sensual   Ottima,  the  gracious  charm  of    Co- 

[276] 


Tlie  Vitality  of  Broivning 

lombe,  the  innocent  guiltiness  of  Mildred  and 
Mertoun,  the  noble  faith  of  Luria. 

Apart  from  the  creation  of  character  in  his 
dramas  Browning  discovered  in  this  period  the 
peculiar  form  of  verse  in  which  his  most  char- 
acteristic work  hereafter  was  to  be  framed, 
the  dramatic  monologue;  and  his  first  employ- 
ment of  this  form,  My  Last  Duchess,  shows  how 
instantly  he  realized  its  possibilities.  Humor, 
a  quality  hitherto  unknown  in  Browning,  shows 
itself  in  such  work  as  The  Pied  Piper,  Si- 
brandus  Schafnaburgensis,  and  The  Flight  of 
the  Duchess.  Passion,  too,  makes  its  appear- 
ance, the  passion  of  friendship  in  Time's  Re- 
venges, of  hatred  in  the  Soliloquy  of  the  Spanish 
Cloister,  of  love  in  Cristina  and  In  a  Gondola. 

As  one  glances  back  over  the  period  as  a 
whole,  one  gets  somehow  the  impression  of  a 
genial  young  giant  broken  loose  upon  the  world 
and  venting  his  glorious  strength,  not  in 
destruction,  but  in  reproduction,  in  imitation, 
in  caricature,  even,  of  the  multiform  types  of 

[277] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

humanity  that  he  encountered  there.  And  as 
a  whole  this  period  of  vigorous  objective  work, 
so  packed  with  vivid  portraiture,  so  ahve  with 
human  passion,  represents  an  immeasurable 
advance  upon  the  incoherent  beauties  of  Pau- 
line, the  confused  entanglement  of  Sordello, 
or  even  the  eloquent  philosophy  of  Paracelsus. 
Yet  all  this  work,  fresh,  strong,  and  vital  as  it 
appears  to  us,  was  thrown  away  upon  a  public 
deaf  and  blind.  The  Bells  and  Pomegranates, 
published  though  they  were  in  cheap  yellow- 
paper-covered  booklets,  found  few  readers 
and  almost  no  purchasers.  One.  only  of  the 
numbers  achieved  the  grace  of  a  second  edition, 
A  Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon;  and  this  distinction 
was  due,  one  fears,  not  to  any  popular  appre- 
ciation of  its  merits,  but  in  part  to  the  com- 
parative success  it  had  obtained  upon  the  stage, 
and  in  part  to  the  notoriety  of  the  bitter  quarrel 
between  playwright  and  actor  which  accom- 
panied its  production. 

Browning  had,  however,  already  gained  one 
[  278  ] 


The  Vitality  of  Browning 

reader  whose  praise  in  after  years  was  to  out- 
weigh for  liim  the  phiudits  of  a  Hstening  world. 
EHzabeth  Barrett,  a  far  more  popular  poet  in 
the  early  forties  than  Browning,  was  at  the 
time  of  their  first  acquaintance  a  hopeless  in- 
valid, hopeless  at  least  in  her  own  opinion  and 
in  that  of  those  who  knew  her  best.     But  her 
spirit  triumphed  serenely  over  her  bodily  suffer- 
ings.    Invahd  as  she  was,  her  life  was  very 
full.     She  read,  wrote,  translated,  received  a  few 
intimates  in  the  little  room  where  she  spent  day 
after  day  upon  her  sofa,  and  kept  in  close  touch 
with  all  the  movements  of  the  time.     Brown- 
ing, "  the  author  of  Paracelsus  and  king  of  the 
mystics,"    as    she   called   him,    she   had    long 
known  in  his  works,  and  she  had  conceived  the 
highest  opinion  of  his  present  worth  and  his 
promise   for  the   future.     The   noble   compli- 
ment which  she  paid  in  her  Poems  of  1844  to 
his    Bells   and    Pomegranates   brought   her   a 
letter  from  him  full  of  thanks  and  enthusiastic 
praise  of  her  work.     Her  reply  opened  the  way 

[279] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

to  an  animated  and  intimate  correspondence, 
and  after  some  months  Browning  received  per- 
mission to  visit  her.  On  a  former  occasion 
she  had,  indeed,  dechned  to  receive  him. 
"There  is  nothing  to  see  in  me,"  she  said, 
"  nothing  to  hear  in  me.  I  am  a  weed  fit  for 
the  ground  and  darkness."  But  Browning 
saw  in  her  a  flower  that  needed  only  the  sun- 
Hght  of  love  to  breakout  into  full  bloom,  and  this 
love  he  brought  with  him.  It  is  characteristic 
of  the  impetuous  vigor  of  the  man  that  his  first 
visit  to  the  woman  whom  he  thought,  as  he 
confessed  afterwards,  to  be  suffering  from  some 
incurable  disease,  was  promptly  followed  by  a 
letter  containing  an  offer  of  marriage.  Miss 
Barrett  w^as  greatly  shocked,  and  forbade  fur- 
ther advance  upon  penalty  of  forfeiting  her 
friendship.  With  a  lover's  craft  Browning 
bowed  to  her  decision,  obtained  the  return  of 
the  offending  letter,  and  straightway  burned  it, — 
to  the  deep  grief  in  after  days  of  his  wife,  who  had 
treasured  up  every  other  word  he  ever  wrote  her. 

[280] 


The  Vitality  of  Browimig 

Their  intercourse  began  again,  and  before 
long  the  poetess,  longing  with  all  the  strength 
of  her  passionate  woman's  heart  for  love,  found 
herself  unable  to  put  away  the  cup  of  life 
which  her  poet-lover  quietly  but  with  steadfast 
devotion  held  to  her  hps.  The  story  of  their 
courtship  has  recently  been  given  to  the  world 
by  the  publication  of  the  letters  that  passed  be- 
tween them  in  these  months.  A  great  hue  and 
cry  was  raised  at  the  time  over  the  publication 
of  these  letters,  as  if  in  some  way  the  sanctities 
of  private  life  had  thereby  been  profaned.  But 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  there  is  little  or  nothing  in 
them  except  the  prose  version  of  what  Mrs. 
Browning  herself,  with  her  husband's  consent 
and  at  his  desire,  had  long  since  given  to  the 
world  in  the  Sonnets  from  the  Portuguese. 
These  sonnets  are  in  every  detail  autobiograph- 
ical, and  quite  apart  from  their  extraordinary 
worth  as  pure  poetry,  they  are  a  contribution 
to  the  psychology  of  love  such  as  has  seldom 
been  equaled.     They  form  a  perfect  sequence 

[281] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

from  his  first  proffer  of  love  and  her  refusal 
through  a  trembling  symphony  of  doubts  and 
fears  and  hopes  to  the  harmonious  closing 
chords  of  her  final  surrender  and  avowal: 

"I  love  thee  with  a  love  I  seemed  to  lose 
With  my  lost  saints  —  I  love  thee  with  the  breath. 
Smiles,  tears,  of  all  this  life  —  and  if  God  choose, 
I  shall  but  love  thee  better  after  death." 

One  obstacle  alone  stood  in  the  way  of  their 
happiness.  Mr.  Barrett  was  apparently  the 
perfect  type  of  that  hard-hearted  father  who, 
fortunately  for  the  world,  is  so  much  commoner 
in  fiction  than  in  real  life.  He  was  by  no  means 
an  unkind  parent,  but  his  theory  of  paternal 
government  seems  to  have  been  that  he  should 
oblige  his  children  in  small  things  and  they 
should  obey  him  in  all  things.  All  thought  of 
marriage,  in  particular,  on  the  part  of  any  of  his 
daughters  he  resisted  with  an  almost  insane 
violence  of  speech  and  gesture.  He  had  no 
special  dislike  to  Browning,  "  the  pomegranate 
man,"   as  he   called   him;  but  when   it  was 

[282] 


The  Vitality  of  Browning 

hinted  to  him  that  his  invahd  daughter,  now 
visibly  gaining  in  health  and  strength,  might 
some  day  be  looking  for  a  husband,  he  replied 
that  she  ought  to  be  thinking  of  another  world. 
Miss  Barrett  confessed  herself  physically  un- 
able to  endure  the  outbreak  that  would  inevi- 
tably follow  the  announcement  of  her  purpose; 
and  at  her  desire  the  marriage  was  secret. 
Within  a  week  afterwards  she  left  her  home 
never  to  return.  Her  father  considered  her 
action  as  little  short  of  an  unnatural  crime;  he 
never  saw  her  again,  left  her  letters  unopened, 
and  went  to  his  grave  unforgiving. 

Apart  from  the  passing  shadow  which  her 
father's  harshness  threw  upon  them,  the  mar- 
ried happiness  of  the  Brownings  was  unbroken. 
They  lived  for  the  most  part  in  Florence,  mak- 
ing occasional  excursions  to  Rome  and  Paris, 
and  visiting  England  at  intervals  in  the  summer. 
They  saw  little  of  society  in  the  ordinary  sense 
of  the  word;  but  Story,  Hawthorne,  George 
Sand,    Mazzini,     Landor,    Rossetti,    Carlyle, 

[283] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

and  Tennyson  were  among  their  acquaintances 
and  friends.  Mrs.  Browning  continued  to 
improve  in  health  and  strength  till  it  seemed 
that  little  short  of  a  miracle  had  been  wrought 
upon  her.  All  credit  for  the  miracle  she 
at  least  gave  her  husband.  "He  has  done 
everything  for  me,"  she  wrote  a  friend; 
"he  loved  me  for  reasons  which  had  helped 
to  weary  me  of  myself,  drew  me  back  to 
life  and  hope  when  I  had  done  with  both. 
.  .  .  The  intellect  is  so  little  in  comparison 
with  all  the  rest,  the  womanly  tenderness,  the 
inexhaustible  goodness,  the  high  and  noble 
aspiration  of  every  hour."  Browning  on  his 
part  regarded  her  as  the  inspiration  of  his  life. 
"By  gift  of  her,"  he  says,  "God  best  taught 
song."  She  is  his  "angel,"  his  "moon  of 
poets,"  his 

"Lyric  love,  half  angel  and  half  bird. 
And  all  a  wonder  and  a  wild  desire." 

It  is  her  face  that  he  expects  to  see  at  the  last 
breaking  through  the  clouds  of  death;  it  is  she 

[284] 


The  Vitality  of  Browning 

who  in  the  next  world  will  see  and  make  him 
see  "new  depths  of  the  divine." 

Their  married  life  was  perhaps  too  happy  to 
last  long  upon  this  earth.  Mrs.  Browning's 
eager  and  sensitive  temperament  at  last  wore 
through  its  tenement  of  clay.  In  1861,  sixteen 
years  after  their  marriage,  she  died  suddenly 
in  her  husband's  arms,  "smilingly,  happily, 
with  a  face  like  a  girl's."  "There  was  no 
lingering  nor  acute  pain  nor  consciousness  of 
separation,"  he  wrote  a  friend,  "  but  God  took 
her  to  himself  as  you  would  lift  a  sleeping 
child  out  of  a  dark,  uneasy  bed  into  your  arms 
and  the  light." 

The  influence  of  these  happy  years  of  inti- 
mate association  with  a  spirit  at  once  so  lofty 
and  so  tender  as  his  wife's  is  unmistakable 
upon  the  poet's  work.  Browning's  third 
period  begins  with  the  twin-poems  of  Christ- 
mas Eve  and  Easter  Day,  published  some  four 
years  after  his  marriage,  and  closes  in  1868 
Mdth  the  late  completion  of  the  work  which  he 

[285] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

had  meditated  and  perhaps  roughly  sketched 
out  before  his  wife's  death,  The  Ring  and 
the  Book.  In  a  sense  this  period  is  a  con- 
tinuation of  the  second.  It  is,  in  the  main,  a 
period  of  objective  work,  of  character  creation. 
And  as  such  it  contains  Browning's  finest  work. 
Nothing  that  he  did  before  or  after  can  com- 
pare with  the  figures  of  Fra  Lippo  and  Andrea 
del  Sarto,  with  Bishop  Blougram  and  Mr. 
Sludge,  with  the  immortal  three  of  The  Ring 
and  the  Book,  Guido,  Pompilia,  and  Giuseppe 
Caponsacchi.  But  the  period  is  by  no  means 
one  of  pure  objectivity.  The  poet  interprets 
as  well  as  creates.  He  creates,  indeed,  often 
for  the  sake  of  interpretation.  The  figures  of 
Caliban,  for  example,  and  of  the  dying  apostle 
whom  Jesus  loved,  were  drawn  not  for  any 
mere  aesthetic  delight  in  realizing  a  poetic 
concept,  though  this,  too,  no  doubt,  enters  into 
the  work,  but  primarily  to  serve  as  mouth- 
pieces of  Browning's  ideas  on  religion,  what 
religion  must  be  when  it  looks  up  to  an  all- 

[286] 


The  Vitality  of  Browriing 

powerful  but  loveless  God,  what  religion  may 
be  when  it  centres  in  a  God  of  love.  How 
immensely  Browning's  interest  in  religion  in- 
creased in  this  period  may  readily  be  ascer- 
tained by  comparing  the  unfinished  Saul  of 
the  Bells  and  Pomegranates  with  the  superb 
conclusion  added  ten  years  later  in  Alen  and 
Women. 

And  when  one  speaks  of  religion  in  connec- 
tion with  Browning  one  means  neither  more 
nor  less  than  Christianity.  To  discuss  the  ex- 
act degree  of  Browning's  orthodoxy,  to  exam- 
ine whether  at  all  times  he  accepted  implicitly 
each  separate  dogma  of  revealed  religion,  is 
of  course  impossible  in  such  a  sketch  as  this. 
It  is  sufficient  for  us  to  know  that  at  this 
central  period  of  his  life,  this  period  of  his 
greatest  and  most  enduring  creative  work,  he 
held  fast  to  the  central  doctrine  of  Christianity, 
the  revelation  of  God's  love  for  man  in  the  God- 
man,  Christ.  This  doctrine  is  the  theme  of 
poem  after  poem,  of  Saul,  of  Karshish,  of  A 

[287] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

Death  in  the  Desert;  rejected,  Browning  seems 
to  teach,  it  leaves  human  hfe  as  sadly  insoluble 
a  puzzle  as  it  was  to  Cleon;  accepted  it  trans- 
figures human  life  with  the  glory  which  hung 
about  the  death-bed  of  St.  John.  And  if  it  be 
objected  that  such  poems  are  dramatic  in 
nature,  that  the  words  of  David  or  Karshish 
do  not  express  the  beliefs  of  Browning,  the 
simple  answer  is  that  no  one  but  a  believer  in 
this  doctrine  would,  or  could,  have  treated  it 
so  often  with  such  intense  interest  and  with 
such  evident  sympathy.  And  if  further  an- 
swer were  needed,  the  first  poem  of  this  period, 
Christmas  Eve,  proclaims  Browning's  personal 
belief  in  the  divinity  of  Christ  in  the  frankest 
fashion,  and  rejects  absolutely  the  modern 
notion  that  the  "secret  of  Jesus"  consists  in 
the  "sweet  reasonableness"  of  his  moral 
teachings.  It  is  only  a  biased,  and,  to  my 
mind,  a  wilfully  blinded  criticism  which  can 
see  in  the  speaker  of  this  poem  any  other  than 
the  poet  himself. 

[288] 


The  Vitality  of  Broioning 

Indeed,  this  reappearance  of  the  personal, 
subjective  note  might  well  be  called  the  ele- 
ment which  distinguishes  the  work  of  Brown- 
ing's third  period  from  that  which  immediately 
preceded  it.  It  is  not  on  the  topic  of  religion 
alone  that  he  speaks  out.  On  art,  and  its 
significance  in  human  life,  on  love,  and  its 
power  in  the  releasing  of  the  soul,  his  utterance 
is  quite  as  direct.  Such  personal  speech  as 
appears  in  Old  Pictures  in  Florence,  and  One 
Word  More;  such  slightly  veiled  expression  of 
his  thought  as  appears  in  Aht  Vogler,  and 
Evelyn  Hope,  would  have  been  impossible  to 
his  mood  of  a  few  years  earlier. 

It  is  hardly  to  be  doubted,  I  think,  that  it 
was  the  influence  of  his  wife,  whose  own  genius 
was  distinctly  lyrical  and  subjective,  that  led 
to  this  freer  expression  of  his  own  "  hopes  and 
fears,  beliefs  and  disbelieving."  Early  in 
their  correspondence  Miss  Barrett  had  urged 
Browning  to  speak  out  in  his  own  person ;  and 
he  had  replied  that  whereas  he  had  hitherto 

[289] 


Studies  of  a  BooMover 

only  made  men  and  women  utter  themselves 
on  his  behalf,  he  would  now  try  to  declare  di- 
rectly what  was  in  him;  "only,"  he  added,  "I 
don't  think  I  shall  let  you  hear,  after  all,  the 
savage  things  about  Popes  and  imaginative 
religions  that  I  must  say."  That  these  savage 
things  were  never  said,  may  well  be  another 
tribute  to  Mrs.  Browning's  influence. 

Browning  had  nearly  thirty  years  of  life 
before  him  when  his  wife  died,  and  after  the 
first  convulsive  agony  of  grief  he  set  himself  to 
live  them  resolutely  and  well.  For  a  time, 
indeed,  it  was  a  mere  chance  whether  he  should 
go  away  to  some  quiet  retreat  and  be  seen  no 
more.  But  Browning's  vitality  was  too  red- 
blooded  for  any  such  cloistered  seclusion,  and 
two  years  after  his  wife's  death  he  deliberately 
entered  society  again,  pronouncing  the  retired 
life  he  had  led  since  her  death  morbid  and 
unworthy.  From  this  time  on  as  long  as  his 
bodily  strength  permitted,  Browning  was,  in 
the  best  sense,  a  man  of  the  world.     He  ac- 

[290] 


The  Vitality  of  Browning 

cepted  every  suitable  invitation,  he  was  seen 
at  every  public  function.  He  appeared  at  first 
nights  in  the  theater,  never  missed  a  Patti  or 
Joachim  concert,  a  private  view  or  annual  ex- 
hibition. The  magnificent  success  of  The 
Ring  and  the  Book  finally  established  his  fame 
as  a  poet,  and  he  became  a  lion  of  the  salons  in 
London  and  Paris.  Frankly  enough  he  lived 
and  liked  life's  way.  But  though  in  the  world 
he  was  not  of  it.  Amid  a  materialistic,  pleas- 
ure-loving, and  skeptical  society,  he  remained 
always  the  same  earnest  thinker  and  bold 
speaker,  a  champion  of  the  ideal,  an  apologist 
for  the  eternal  verities.  He  seemed  to  his 
friends  to  have  the  secret  of  perennial  youth, 
for  he  went  unwearied  through  the  arduous 
London  seasons,  and  in  holidays  on  the  Breton 
coast  or  among  the  Alps  swam,  rode,  and 
walked  with  all  the  zest  and  vigor  of  a  youth. 
Something  of  this  joyous  energy  of  youth  sur- 
viving in  old  age  shows  itself  in  his  latest 
poems.     To  the  last  there  remains  the  same 

[291] 


Studies  of  a  BooMover 

keen  interest  in  life,  the  same  desire  to  gather 
objective  facts  and  interpret  them.  The  same 
quick  sensitiveness  to  beauty  that  marks  Pau- 
line appears  in  the  Parleyings,  and  the  pas- 
sionate love-poems  scattered  through  Ferish- 
tah's  Fancies  and  Asolando  were  written  by  a 
white-haired  man  of  almost  eighty. 

Browning  by  no  means  neglected  his  proper 
calHng  during  this  busy  period  of  his  life  in 
society.  He  wrote  vigorously  and  without  in- 
terruption. Indeed,  one  may  venture  the  asser- 
tion that  he  wrote  too  much.  Nine  volumes  in 
eight  years,  which  was  his  record  between  1871 
and  1878,  must  be  a  strain  upon  the  strongest 
powers.  One  has  the  feeling  in  looking  over 
the  work  of  these  years  that  Browning  had 
perfected  his  method,  wrote  easily  and  swiftly, 
and  cared  little  what  he  wrote  so  long  as  he 
was  occupied.  If  this  were  so,  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  the  quality  of  his  work  suffered  as 
the  quantity  increased.  There  is  an  excess  of 
intellectual  subtlety,  of  psychological  analysis, 

[292] 


TJie  Vitality  of  Browning 

a  deficiency  of  his  former  directness  of  speech  and 
positive  creative  power.  He  neglected  almost 
entirely  his  old  form  of  the  short  dramatic 
monologue,  and  wrote  long  argumentative  or 
narrative  poems  such  as  Fifine  at  the  Fair  or 
Red  Cotton  Night-cap  Country.  One  may  read 
these  poems  with  interest,  but  hardly  with  real 
pleasure,  and  the  temptation  to  return  to  them 
is  assuredly  not  very  strong.  It  is  fortunate 
for  Browning's  fame  that  he  passed  out  of  this 
period  toward  the  close  of  the  seventies,  and 
entered  upon  a  St.  Martin's  summer  of  pro- 
duction which  includes  some  of  his  most  de- 
lightful work.  It  may  be  that  the  shock 
inflicted  upon  him  in  1877  by  the  sudden  death 
of  a  dear  friend  led  to  his  abandoning  the 
practise  of  intellectual  casuistry.  In  the  dark 
hours  that  followed  he  probed  the  inmost  re- 
cesses of  his  soul  to  obtain  a  truthful  answer 
to  the  question  whether  this  earthly  life  were 
all  that  man  could  hope  for.  And  having 
obtained  his  answer,  he  ceased  to  play  with  the 

[  293  ] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

false,  and  again  devoted  himself  to  the  study 
of  the  true.  It  may  be,  too,  that  the  decline 
of  his  bodily  powers,  imperceptible,  indeed,  even 
to  himself,  but  no  less  real,  indisposed  him  to 
the  effort  of  long  and  sustained  composition. 
The  fact  remains  that  the  quantity  of  verse 
pubhshed  by  Browning  during  the  last  ten 
years  of  his  life  is  less  than  half  of  what  he 
wrote  in  the  preceding  decade.  And  this 
verse  consists  for  the  most  part  of  brief  dra- 
matic narratives  marked  by  a  strong  and  im- 
pressive realism,  of  lyrics  instinct  with  strange 
and  poignant  charm,  and,  in  one  volume,  at 
least,  of  parables  in  which  Browning  drapes 
his  philosophy  of  life  with  the  cloak  of  Oriental 
wisdom  in  the  mouth  of  the  dervish-teacher, 
Ferishtah. 

The  last  months  of  Browning's  life  were 
spent  in  Italy,  at  Asolo,  the  httle  hill-town  he 
had  fallen  in  love  with  fifty  years  before,  and 
in  his  son's  Venetian  palace.  Old  as  he  was 
he  still  preserved  his  habit  of  vigorous  action, 

[  294  ] 


The  Vitality  of  Browning 

and  his  enjoyment  of  the  charm  of  Italian  hfe 
and  scenery.  He  walked  among  the  moun- 
tains or  along  the  Lido,  explored  the  obscurest 
calli  of  Venice,  and  feasted  his  eyes  on  the 
gorgeous  pageants  of  Italian  sunrise  and  sun- 
set. "Every  morning  at  six  I  see  the  sun 
rise,"  he  wrote  not  long  before  his  death. 
"My  bedroom  window  commands  a  perfect 
view:  the  still  gray  lagune,  the  few  sea-gulls 
flying,  the  islet  of  St.  Giorgio  in  deep  shadow, 
and  the  clouds  in  a  long  purple  rack,  behind 
which  a  sort  of  spirit  of  rose  burns  up  till 
presently  all  the  rims  are  on  fire  with  gold, 
and  last  of  all  the  orb  sends  before  it  a  long 
column  of  its  own  essence  apparently:  so  my 
day  begins." 

But  even  while  he  enjoyed  the  present 
and  looked  forward  with  happy  anticipation 
to  future  work,  his  strength  was  waning. 
A  bronchial  attack  revealed  some  hitherto 
unsuspected  weakness  of  the  heart's  action, 
and    on    December    12,    1889,    the    very   day 

[295] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

on  which  his  last  volume  of  verse  was  pub- 
lished, Browning  passed  quietly  and  painlessly 
out  of  life.  He  was  honored  with  a  magnifi- 
cent public  funeral  in  Venice,  and  his  body  was 
conveyed  to  England  to  its  final  resting-place 
in  the  Poets'  Corner  of  Westminster  Abbey, 
close  by  the  tomb  of  Chaucer,  and  near  the 
spot  where  his  friend  and  noble  rival  in  the 
race  for  fame,  Alfred  Tennyson,  was  laid  away 
some  three  years  later.  The  solemn  splendor 
of  his  burial  was  a  fitting  tribute  from  the 
nation  that  had  so  long  denied  and  so  late 
accepted  his  claims  as  a  poet  and  teacher. 

It  is  as  a  poet,  I  think,  rather  than  as  a 
teacher,  that  Browning  will  live.  Or,  perhaps, 
one  should  rather  say  that  he  will  live  as  a 
teacher  because  he  was,  first  of  all,  a  poet. 
Part  of  his  work,  a  large  part,  perhaps,  is 
destined  to  the  oblivion  of  the  collected  edition 
and  the  upper  shelf  —  no  unusual  fate  for 
poets  who  have  written  so  much  as  he.  What 
will  live  is  that  portion  in  which,  forgetting  for 

[296] 


The  Vitality  of  Browning 

the  time  his  desire  to  teach,  he  has  set  himself 
to  create  character  and  to  express  emotion. 
It  is  as  certain  as  any  Hterary  prophecy  can 
be  that  Fra  Lippo  and  Abt  Vogler  will  be  read 
long  years  after  La  Sasiaz  and  the  Parleyings 
are  forgotten. 

The  elements  which  give  to  Browning's 
poetry  this  assured  vitality  may,  I  think,  be 
briefly  summed  up  under  three  heads.  There 
is,  first,  his  extraordinary  grasp  upon  reality. 
Browning  is  not  a  poet  of  dreams  and  vague 
desires  and  empty  aspirations.  He  deals  by 
preference  with  the  common  aspects  of  earth 
and  the  common  passions  of  mankind.  He 
has  nothing  of  Shelley's  "desire  of  the  moth 
for  the  star " ;  on  the  contrary  he  shares  to  the 
full  the  great  movement  toward  realism  in 
literature  which  succeeded  the  romantic  period 
of  the  early  nineteenth  century.  From  this 
reaUsm  springs  not  only  his  power  of  vivid 
description,  but  his  humor,  and  his  fondness 
for  the  grotesque.     He  saw  things  as  they  were 

[297] 


Studies  of  a  Booklover 

and  loved  them  so.  And  it  is  this  quahty,  I 
think,  which  gives  his  work  body  and  fulness. 
Closely  connected  with  this  quality  is  another 
which  we  may  call  his  humanity,  his  wide  sym- 
pathy with  all  forms  of  human  life: 

"Man's  thoughts,  and  loves,  and  hates, 
Earth  is  my  vineyard,  these  grew  there." 

It  is  by  virtue  of  this  sympathy  that  he  was 
able  to  enter  into  souls  so  different  from  his 
own  and  from  one  another  as  Guido,  Giuseppe, 
Cleon,  and  Johannes  Agricola.  And  having 
entered  into  them  and  understood  them,  he 
was  able  to  reveal  them  to  the  world.  Brown- 
ing's greatest  gift  to  literature  consists  in  the 
men  and  women  that  he  has  created.  No 
English  poet  since  Shakespeare  has  possessed 
this  creative  power  to  Browning's  degree,  and 
it  is  just  this  power  which  constitutes  his  essen- 
tial claim  to  the  title  of  poet,  or  maker,  and 
which  gives  his  work  its  warmth  and  color. 

Finally,  Browning's  vitality  is  assured  by  his 
buoyant  and  undaunted  optimism.     In  its  strug- 

[298] 


The  Vitality  of  Browning 

glc  upward  against  the  powers  of  evil  mankind 
cannot  afford  to  reject  the  aid  of  so  strong  and 
fearless  a  fighter  as  Browning  proved  himself. 
A  poet  who  can  hope  in  the  Paris  morgue  is  an 
ally  not  to  be  despised.  It  makes  little  differ- 
ence in  the  last  result  whether  this  optimism 
was  a  matter  of  temperament  or  based  upon 
rational  principles.  As  a  matter  of  fact  both 
temperament  and  reason  combined  in  Brown- 
ing's optimism.  His  vigorous  and  happy  na- 
ture forbade  him  to  succumb  to  the  evil  that  he 
saw  and  plainly  recognized  around  him.  His 
keen  and  powerful  intellect  compelled  him  to 
find  assurance  for  his  instinctive  hope  of  victory. 
And  he  found  this  assurance  in  the  existence, 
amid  all  the  world's  evil  and  misery,  of  love. 

"There  is  no  good  in  life  but  love,  but  love! 
What  else  looks  good  is  some  shade  flung  from 

love. 
Love  gilds  it,  gives  it  worth," 

says  the  hero  of  In  a  Balcony,  echoing  a  thought 
that   recurs   repeatedly   in    BroAvning's   work. 

[299] 


Studies  of  a  BooJdover 

And  since  love  is  the  best  thing  that  the  mind 
can  apprehend  in  the  world,  it  follows  that 
God  —  and  Browning  was  as  sure  of  God  as 
he  was  of  the  world  —  must  be  a  God  of  love. 
And  from  the  idea  of  a  God  of  love  springs  the 
faith  in  immortality  without  which  human  hfe 
becomes  a  miserable  mystery.  And  the  faith 
in  immortality  once  accepted  transforms  hu- 
man life  into  a  period  of  probation  in  which 
pain  and  sorrow  and  evil  itself  may  be  cheer- 
fully accepted  as  necessary  instruments  in  the 
shaping  of  the  soul  for  its  proper  life  hereafter. 
The  belief  in  immortality  was  not  so  much  a 
religious  dogma  as  a  habit  of  mind  with 
Browning;  it  seemed  impossible  for  him  to 
view  the  world  except,  as  it  were,  sub  specie 
oelernitatis.  This  belief  inspired  much  of  his 
loftiest  and  strongest  verse;  and  the  opti- 
mism which  sprang  from  this  belief  gives  his 
work  as  a  whole  its  strengthening  and  elevating 
power. 

The  epilogue  to  Asolando  contains  the  por- 
[300] 


The  Vitality  of  Browning 

trait  that  Browning  drew  of  himself  as  he 
looked  back  over  the  crowded  years  of  his  long 
life.  Reading  the  proof  of  this  last  poem  one 
night  shortly  before  his  death,  he  hesitated  and 
said  to  the  friends  who  were  sitting  by  him: 
"  It  almost  looks  like  bragging  to  say  this,  and 
as  if  I  ought  to  cancel  it;  but  it's  the  simple 
truth;  and  as  it's  true,  it  shall  stand."  It 
might  well  stand  as  his  epitaph,  and  it  will 
serve  fitly  as  a  conclusion  to  this  essay.  Brown- 
ing's work,  as  I  have  tried  to  show,  shares 
something  of  the  poet's  vitality.  And  Brown- 
ing was,  and  knew  himself  to  be, 

"  One  who  never  turned  his  back  but  marched 
breast  forward. 
Never  doubted  clouds  would  break. 
Never  dreamed,  though  right  were  worsted, 

wrong  would  triumph, 
Held  we  fall  to  rise,  are  baflBed  to  fight  better, 
Sleep  to  wake." 


[301] 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  LOS  ANGELES 

THE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 

This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 


OCT  2  9  1943 
JAM  a  i 
JUN  1  3  195S 

JAN  3  0  1961 


Form  L-fi 
S5m-2, '43(5205) 


I 


UNIVERSITY  of  CALIFORNIA 

AT 

LOS  AxNGELES 
TJRRAPY 


PR99  Parrott  - 
P24s  Studies  of  a 
bookl  o  ve  r^ 


PR99 
P24s 


fi  Hi 


